Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed sworn in

The Anti-discrimination Student Movement demanded the son of former caretaker government advisor Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed as the country’s new top judge

Syed Refaat Ahmed, a senior High Court justice, has taken his oath of office as the 25th chief justice of Bangladesh.

He was sworn in by President Mohammed Shahbuddin at an event at the Bangabhaban on Sunday afternoon.

Ahmed’s appointment comes after former chief justice Obaidul Hassan and several other Appellate Division judges resigned in the face of demands from the students who led the movement to topple the government.

The agitating students then called for Ahmed, the son of Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed - a former attorney general and advisor to caretaker governments – as the top judge in the country’s judiciary.

Ahmed was born on Dec 28, 1958. His father Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed was the first additional attorney general of Bangladesh. He served as an advisor of law to the non-party caretaker government twice - in 1991 and 2001.

His mother, National Professor Sufia Ahmed, was a professor at Dhaka University’s Department of Islamic Studies.

Justice Ahmed earned his Bachelor of Law degree at Dhaka University. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence and a Master’s at the Wadham College of Oxford University in 1983. He did a second Master’s and his PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

In 1984, Refaat Ahmed became a lawyer at the District Court. He was enrolled as a lawyer in the High Court in 1986.

He also worked at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong and Washington, DC.

Ahmed was appointed an additional judge to the High Court in 2003 and became permanent judge of the High Court Division in 2005.