The Supreme Court of Bangladesh lifted a stay on a four year old High Court verdict that had declared illegal and unconstitutional the fifth amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. The fifth amendment had legitimized all successive governments after the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from 1975 until April 1979. This ban now makes illegal President Ziaur Rahman’s ascension to the presidency from his status as the Chief Marshal Law Administrator.
The denunciation of the fifth amendment implies that one of the most consequential moments of the founding of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has now been declared illegitimate. Thus, the Awami League now has the constitutional argument that at least some of the founding history of the BNP is now an morally illegitimate left turn in the history of the nation.
Interestingly, though the verdict has been upheld, the BNP has at least two outstanding petitions that require that the fifth amendment remain in the books, until those petitions are resolved. Moreover certain pieces of language will remain as they are, though the amendment that accedes them into the law has been deemed illegal. Hence still in play is the argument on the secular nature of the constitution of the country. This is so because Ziaur Rahman declared the words “Bismillahir rahmanir rahim” the opening salvo of the constitutuion, thereby rejecting secularism as a founding principle of Bangladesh. Indeed, the Attorney General of Bangladesh, Mahbubey Alam, has declared that the passage, which translates to “In the name of God, most gracious and most compassionate” will remain in the preamble of the constitution.
These are interesting times. However, perhaps the times are too far removed from any imagined history of secularism that some in Bangladesh might entertain.
