Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed of DOT :
The 11th parliamentary elections were held on December 30 last year while Awami League got landslide victory with 257 seats.
The five-year tenure of the 10th parliament was supposed to end on January 28.The High Court on Thursday rejected the writ petition that challenged the legality of the oath of 11th parliament members. The writ petition was filed stating that “the oath-taking of the lawmakers is hence unconstitutional”.
As per the writ, Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury administered an oath to the new lawmakers on January 3, following the publication of a gazette; in violation of section 123(3) of the constitution as they were sworn in before the term of the 10th parliament had expired. During the hearing on January 16, the lawyer of the petitioner argued that the oath-taking also violated articles 148(3) of the constitution of Bangladesh. The ground of filing this writ petition is that according to Article 123(3)(a) of the Constitution, parliamentary election needs to be held within 90 days of dissolving the incumbent parliament. The 11th national election was held without dissolving the 10th parliament, which first sat on January 29, 2014. And the 10th parliament still exists and will continue till January 28 of this year as per Article 72(3) of the Constitution of Bangladesh. Hence, the new law makers should have waited for the expiry of the five-year tenure of the 10th parliament, scheduled to end on January 28.
Moreover, as per article 148(3) if a person is required to make an oath before entering an office, s/he shall be deemed to have entered office immediately after the oath. Following article 148(3), the new lawmakers shall be deemed to have taken office right after they were sworn in.
However, the Attorney General Mahbubey Alam opposed the writ petition saying that the petitioner lacks sufficient interest in the matter in question. The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal passed the rejection order considering that the petition was not placed before it properly. The lawmakers elected in the 11th parliamentary election now have no legal bar to perform their functions following the HC order.
The petitioner in this case has failed to show that he has sufficient interest in the subject matter of the petition and hence the petition was rejected.
However, we expect due procedure as prescribed under the Constitution must be followed in every step that this government shall take and it shall transfer a message to the people that no act in violation of Constitution or any other law can be supported. At the same time, people should not also challenge the acts of the government with ill motive to slow down its progress. Everyone has a responsible role to play – we must remember this in our action.
The writer is the Executive Editor of Daily Our Time
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