Dhaka – Law Commission chairman and former chief justice ABM Khairul Haque on Wednesday called the Supreme Court (SC) judges ‘immature’ and said they made many irrelevant comments in the 16th amendment case verdict.“In the 16th amendment case verdict, they [Supreme Court judges] termed parliament as well as the lawmakers immature. It’s not fair that a constitutional body will call another constitutional body immature,” he said in his formal reaction on behalf of the Law Commission over the 16th amendment case verdict.
Khairul Haque also said that the chief justice who was the author judge of the case made adverse and irrelevant comments on the lawmakers and the Election Commission bypassing the main issue of the case, which was unwarranted.
The Law Commission briefing was held at a time when the country is witnessing massive debate both in favour of and against the verdict that declared illegal the 16th amendment to the Constitution which restored the Supreme Judicial Council by scrapping the parliament’s authority to remove SC judges.
The verdict also raised questions about many issues that included the transparency of the Election Commission and its ability to hold a free, fair and impartial election.
Referring to an observation of the verdict that says the independence of judiciary will hamper or curtail in the absence of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), the former chief justice said, “This observation of the Supreme Court is not correct as the independence of the judiciary was as usual before the formation of the SJC.”
“There is no relation between the independence of the judiciary and the Supreme Judicial Council,” he said.
“The SJC may fail … it may not function transparently and might be used as a weapon,” Haque also said.
Defending the 16th amendment to the Constitution, the Law Commission chief said: It is better to keep the authority of removing Supreme Court judges in the hand of a transparent body, parliament, instead of a body that is not transparent.
Haque said, “Irrelevant comments were given in the verdict on many pages. Up to pages seven, even it could not be understood that on what issues the apex court was delivering its verdict. It was not appropriate.”
Although members of parliament and Election Commission were not parties in the petition, the apex court made many adverse and irrelevant comments on the parliament members and the EC, which was not acceptable, he said. Justice Khairul Haque, it may be mentioned, had issued judgements scrapping two constitutional amendments and upholding the scrapping of another such amendment when he was in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. – Staff Reporter
