Parliament must be able to sack judges for sovereignty, says Suranjit

To ensure that Parliament is sovereign, it must have the power to impeach the Supreme Court judges, the chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on law, justice an parliamentary affairs ministry, has said.

"Parliament cannot be sovereign if it cannot hold all branches (of the State) to account. We must amend article 96 to ensure the sovereignty of Parliament," Suranjit Sengupta said on Thursday.

He was speaking to the press at parliament's media centre after a meeting of the committee.

Though in Bangladesh's first constitution Parliament retained the power to impeach top judges, military ruler Ziaur Rahman later cancelled it and gave the power to a Supreme Judicial Council.

In the 1972 constitution, the article 96 allowed Parliament to impeach Supreme Court judges for proven offences or incapability by the vote of a two-thirds majority.

The issue of reviving this authority came into focus after the Awami League took office in the last term.

In 2012, some MPs called for the removal of a High Court judge after a series of events centring the remark of the then speaker and current President Abdul Hamid.

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The matter was also discussed when the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was underway, although the article was not restored.

The Law Commission this past June submitted a report containing some recommendations to the parliamentary committee.

After Thursday's meeting, Suranjit Sengupta said, "I have heard that the article 96 will be restored. It was one of the fundamental tenets of the ‘72 constitution."

"Every branch of the State answers to Parliament. Parliament elects the prime minister and the president, removes them too. The judiciary, similarly, should be answerable to Parliament," he said.

"But there's this vibe that the judiciary doesn't need to answer to anyone."

Suranjit was the co-chair of the special committee on 15th amendment.

"This thing should have been done in the 15th amendment. Then no one would have raised any question. I tried my best, (but) encountered a lot of resistance. Still, better late than never," he said.

According the Suranjit, the issue was already resolved. He said the judiciary answered to sovereign parliaments in all nations that had them.

'Reduce caseload'

The meeting of the standing committee on law ministry discussed the digitalisation of the judiciary and reducing logjam, the Parliament Secretariat said in a media statement.

The committee recommended that to reduce caseload, infrastructure should be developed and district judges prevented from leaving their workplace.

The panel further suggested increased monitoring on judges and appointment of more judges as needed by the law ministry.

Suranjit said Mymensingh District Judge Nurul Huda had resolved 50,000 cases in three months.

The committee will go to Mymensingh on Aug 9, taking the media with it, to experience his achievement firsthand.

"The way a judge is reducing case backlog on his own is an extraordinary feat in establishing the rule of law," he said.