‘Caretaker snaps democracy’

Former Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque has defended the dropping of the provision for a caretaker government from the Constitution as a step to preserve the ‘sovereignty of the people’.

“We were compelled to annul the 13th Amendment to the Constitution because our Constitution and law don’t endorse an absence of rule of the people for three months,” Haque, who had headed the Appellate Division bench that scrapped the provision, said at seminar on Wednesday.

“The only objective of the verdict was to maintain the continuation of democracy, not to obstruct it,” said Haque, now the Chairman of the Law Commission.

Article 7 of the Constitution stipulates that all powers in the state be vested with the people, and their exercise, on people’s behalf, must conform to the Constitution.

The former Chief Justice said: “Sovereignty of the people is ever-flowing. It cannot be suspended even for a day.”

Referring to the administration of oath to then US Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson as the President over wireless immediately after John F Kennedy’s assassination on Nov 22, 1963, Haque said: “He was not given even half an hour time.”

The first election under a non-party interim government was held in 1991 after the fall of HM Ershad’s regime.

Later, the provision was included in the charter in 1996 when the Awami League boycotted polls under then BNP-led government and waged movement demanding the system’s constitutional endorsement.

But questions about the system’s legality arose after the caretaker government, led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, stayed on in power for two years from 2007 to 2008.

File Photo

Many top political leaders, including Awami League President Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, were arrested and jailed during the caretaker regime.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, in a verdict on May 10, 2011, declared the system illegal.

The present Awami League-led government amended the Constitution accordingly, and held the 10th national election on Jan 5 under the administration headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

But the BNP-led 18-party Alliance, which has been agitating for the restoration of the system claiming that elections under a party-led government cannot be fair, boycotted the polls.

During the seminar’s question-answer session, Haque said those who were attacking people belonging to the minority community were miscreants without political identities.

They should be brought to book, he added.

Terming the attacks unfortunate and unexpected, he said: “As a senior citizen of the country and as a Muslim, I’m ashamed.”

National Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman also spoke at the seminar.