Dhaka, Nov 14 (PTI) Bangladesh overnight issued an ordinance in line with interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus proposed referendum on a political charter, drawing immediate rebuttal from jurists who called it “unconstitutional”.
President Muhammad Shahabuddin on late Thursday signed into ordinance the “July Charter Implementation Order” while the document was drafted by Yunus-headed National Consensus Commission after protracted consultations with several political parties excluding deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League.
In a nationwide televised address Chief Adviser Yunus on Thursday said plebiscite would be staged simultaneously with the planned national election in February next year to elicit peoples mandate for the charter.
“Most of the decisions taken in the July Charter, including those in the gazette, are contrary to the current Constitution. Since the Constitution is still in force, the President cannot legally sign this gazette,” leading constitutional expert and former law professor Shahdeen Malik said in a newspaper interview.
Bangladesh Constitution kept no provision for referendum or plebiscite while its Article 93 of says no ordinance could be promulgated “for altering or repealing any provision of this Constitution”.
The charter contained over 80 proposals including issues requiring amendments to the Constitution but Yunus said the proposals were synopsized in four issues while the voters would just need to say “yes” or “no” in a question covering the four issues.
Malik told Bangladesh’s the Business Standard newspaper that the referendum “would have been acceptable if the Constitution had been annulled or suspended under martial law (but) since neither has happened, everything should proceed according to the existing Constitution”.
He feared the voters would be unable to make an informed decision on the referendum issues and will “leave their ballots blank” on the referendum and vote for their chosen MP candidates alone.
“The public first needs to understand the issues they are voting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on”,” he said.
The ordinance stipulated the next parliament must complete constitutional reform, as outlined in the charter and by the referendum’s result, within 180 working days from the date of its first sitting.
Malik called the directive “absurd” adding “there is no benefit in fixing these dates if the Parliament does not take them seriously”.
Senior Supreme Court (SC) lawyer Mohammad Ruhul Quddus questioned since the current Constitution contained no provision for referendums, “under what legal authority could one now be held”.
Another SC lawyer Rashna Imam said, the issue of the July Charter ordinance to be followed by a referendum raised “serious constitutional and procedural concerns”.
“Today, Bangladesh remains a constitutional democracy, however imperfect, and any mechanism that overlooks this fundamental reality risks eroding the legitimacy of our constitutional order,” she said.
Yunus said if the July Charter proposals were endorsed in the referendum, a “Constitutional Reform Council” would be formed comprising parliament members and they would serve simultaneously as Parliament members.
He said the next parliament would have two chambers while the upper house would be constituted on the basis of proportional representation (PR) of votes the parties bagged in the lower house.
The referendum issue earlier sharply pitted former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) against country’s largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami though both signed the charter.
BNP, however, gave a series of notes of dissent, which was not mentioned in the final draft irking the party.
The government earlier gave the parties a seven-day time to reach a consensus on the issue saying otherwise it would come up with a unilateral decision, which Yunus announced in his Thursday’s address.
But Yunus’s address visibly failed to woo either of the parties.
BNP said Yunus violated the charter he signed himself as the document suggested nobody could impose anything new like the Constitutional Reform Council or the PR system, as his party gave its dissent to such proposals during the framing of the charter.
“The chief adviser has breached the charter that he signed on October 17 at the South Plaza of the National Parliament. By his speech today, he has clearly violated that document.” BNP standing committee member Salahuddin Ahmed said.
Ahmed, who represented BNP in protracted consultations with the consensus commission, said there were “significant inconsistencies” and new proposals in the July Charter Implementation Order the advisory council issued, compared to the signed charter and “we will not accept them”.
“Many new points have been added, while several consensus-based clauses from the charter are missing… (particularly) the Constitutional Reform Council is completely a new idea. So, the very basis of the referendum has become questionable,” he said.
Jamaat, on the other hand, appeared softer in reacting to Yunus’s address while the party regretted the denial of its demand to hold the referendum ahead of the polls fearing the decision to escalate the existing political crisis.
“By announcing that the polls and referendum will be held on the same day, the government has plunged the country into further crisis,” Jamaat secretary general Mia Golam Parwar said.
BNP, emerged as the frontrunner in absence of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League, initially was opposed to the idea of referendum saying parliament was the appropriate forum for endorsing the document since the Constitution kept no provision for referendum.
The party, however, later reluctantly agreed to the plebiscite proposition but said it must be held on the day of national election.
Jamaat, once a key BNP ally, took a stubborn stand against the planned national election in February unless its demand for the referendum was held ahead of the polls to give a “legal basis” to the July Charter. PTI AR NB NB
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