Editorial Desk :
The High Court Division in a full verdict on Thursday rightly directed the Police Academy to teach trainee police officers about human rights and other provisions of the Constitution. In the short order on April 1, 2018 a Bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice Krishna Debnath cautioned Nilphamari’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal judge Poresh Chandra Sharma and Nilphamari police station officer-in-charge Babul Akter for arresting Mahmudul Hasan and sending him to the jail ignoring lawyers’ certificate that the High Court Division had granted him six months anticipatory bail on February 12, 2018.
It was long time ago that such direction was given for police to make them conscious about their duty to respect individual’s human or fundamental rights. Since the crisis has worsened not because we do not have responsible police among us. But like many others the police have become victims of politicisation. They have been made to believe that the courts are there to ignore the wrongs
they are compelled to do for being politicised.
Regrettably, we have to say that the judiciary also does not show the backbone for using it’s constitutional independence for protecting rights of the people against political abuse of power.
We know that the government as executive branch is not tolerating independence of the judiciary but that does not mean that the judiciary will surrender the trust of the people as reposed under the Constitution to protect and uphold the Constitution. The judges are not public servants under the ministers. They must not behave so. So before the police to be conscious of human rights the judges themselves need to show that they are ready to protect the Constitution.
Whatever be the reason the truth is the weak judiciary has made the whole nation helpless. The people are suffering in so many ways including easy police arrest and unconstitutional torture in police custody. Crimes have become politics nowadays.
It is for the feebleness of the judiciary that the government has come to believe that all power belongs to the government. The police have become an extension of the politics of the government which is a shame. We are unmindful of the power and dignity we must enjoy as free people. We are proving ourselves unfit for independence. We will also have to share the blame.
It is so heart breaking that our children at universities are worst victims of abuse of human rights. Only yesterday some students of the Dhaka University have been attacked viciously by government supported student wing. Many of them were seriously wounded. The DUCSU VP Nurul Haque Nur, an elected student leader, is fighting for his life in a hospital.
The judges cannot look for backbone elsewhere other than the Constitution and the oath they have taken. The judges must hold their constitutional position of independence and respect their own position of dignity. When human rights are denied to make even the students suffer brutally, the judges must not take it easily that they enjoy special privileges and personal security.
The judges must rise above their weakness and their own separation from the executive branch also be upheld strictly.
The Supreme Court day became controversial for tough security needed for the President and law minister, but the lawyers were largely ignored as a part of the celebration. The main gate was not open for the lawyers. Most of the lawyers were kept out of the main function. Without the VIPs, the Chief Justice could have made the occasion a great moment for the lawyers and judges.
The High Court Division in a full verdict on Thursday rightly directed the Police Academy to teach trainee police officers about human rights and other provisions of the Constitution. In the short order on April 1, 2018 a Bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice Krishna Debnath cautioned Nilphamari’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal judge Poresh Chandra Sharma and Nilphamari police station officer-in-charge Babul Akter for arresting Mahmudul Hasan and sending him to the jail ignoring lawyers’ certificate that the High Court Division had granted him six months anticipatory bail on February 12, 2018.
It was long time ago that such direction was given for police to make them conscious about their duty to respect individual’s human or fundamental rights. Since the crisis has worsened not because we do not have responsible police among us. But like many others the police have become victims of politicisation. They have been made to believe that the courts are there to ignore the wrongs
they are compelled to do for being politicised.
Regrettably, we have to say that the judiciary also does not show the backbone for using it’s constitutional independence for protecting rights of the people against political abuse of power.
We know that the government as executive branch is not tolerating independence of the judiciary but that does not mean that the judiciary will surrender the trust of the people as reposed under the Constitution to protect and uphold the Constitution. The judges are not public servants under the ministers. They must not behave so. So before the police to be conscious of human rights the judges themselves need to show that they are ready to protect the Constitution.
Whatever be the reason the truth is the weak judiciary has made the whole nation helpless. The people are suffering in so many ways including easy police arrest and unconstitutional torture in police custody. Crimes have become politics nowadays.
It is for the feebleness of the judiciary that the government has come to believe that all power belongs to the government. The police have become an extension of the politics of the government which is a shame. We are unmindful of the power and dignity we must enjoy as free people. We are proving ourselves unfit for independence. We will also have to share the blame.
It is so heart breaking that our children at universities are worst victims of abuse of human rights. Only yesterday some students of the Dhaka University have been attacked viciously by government supported student wing. Many of them were seriously wounded. The DUCSU VP Nurul Haque Nur, an elected student leader, is fighting for his life in a hospital.
The judges cannot look for backbone elsewhere other than the Constitution and the oath they have taken. The judges must hold their constitutional position of independence and respect their own position of dignity. When human rights are denied to make even the students suffer brutally, the judges must not take it easily that they enjoy special privileges and personal security.
The judges must rise above their weakness and their own separation from the executive branch also be upheld strictly.
The Supreme Court day became controversial for tough security needed for the President and law minister, but the lawyers were largely ignored as a part of the celebration. The main gate was not open for the lawyers. Most of the lawyers were kept out of the main function. Without the VIPs, the Chief Justice could have made the occasion a great moment for the lawyers and judges.
