A law has died

A law has died

Shahdeen Malik | Prothom Alo Jun 02, 2019

When a person dies, his friends and relations are informed. If a renowned person passes away, the news appears in the media. There are meetings to commemorate his death and his death anniversary is observed in the days to come.

When I lived abroad, I noticed news reports about animals that passed away, like that of a dog that starred in a movie or a famous race horse. In our country when ducks and chickens or cows and goats die of any epidemic, that too hits the headlines.

However, the readers surely have never heard news of a law dying. Generally speaking, a law does not die. A new law can render an old law void, or an old law is abolished to give way for a new one. It is very rare that a law dies absolutely, but this is about a law in our country that has actually died.

The law that has died is the Law and Order Disruption Offence (Speedy Trial) Act 2002. It died quite a few weeks ago, on 9 April.

The law was born during the BNP-Jamaat government rule, passed in parliament on 10 April 2002. It was supposed to be effective for two years, but its term was repeatedly extended. On 7 April 2014 its tenure was determined to be 17 years, that is, from 10 April 2002 to 9 April 2019. That means the law had deceased and has been ineffective for around 50 days or so.

I have noted that when a government enacts a bad law, invariably the law-enacting government or the political party is the victim of that law. When the BNP-Jamaat government enacted the law, it was used against the opposition. But it was the leaders and activists of BNP that actually felt the heat of this law. They faced hundreds of fake cases towards the end of last year, accused of extortion, obstructing public movement, damaging vehicles and other property, mugging, etc. These crimes have been defined by the law in such a manner that the police can simply accuse and arrest anyone on these charges. For example, even if just 10 persons bring out a small ‘procession’, they can be arrested for obstructing public movement. This law was thus used to file cases against innumerable leaders and workers of the opposition.

It is a matter of relief for them, then, that the law has died. A report appeared on the inside pages of Prothom Alo on 28 May this year, reading, ‘Term of controversial speedy trial act being extended by five years’. The report said the cabinet had extended the term of the act at a meeting on 27 May. That means this will be raised in the next session of parliament. The Prothom Alo report mentioned that when the act had originally been passed in 2002, it had been dubbed by Awami League (in the opposition at the time), as the ‘Anti-Awami League Act’.

As I said at the beginning, it is very rare that a law dies. It is unclear what the consequences are of such a death. It would be logical for the ongoing cases filed under the dead law, to be dismissed. The speedy trial tribunals had been formed to try the cases under this act. If the law has died, that would mean the tribunals have died too.

It must be kept in mind that the case pertaining to the murder of madrasa student Nusrat of Sonagazi, Feni, is to be tried by a speedy trial tribunal that was set up under a different act that is still in effect. But the speedy trial tribunal formed for the Law and Order Disruption Offence (Speedy Trial) Act, has died along with the law.

In order to run the cases that were filed under this dead law, the government may concoct some sort of amendment to be passed in parliament. That will not resurrect the dead law. Article 25 of the constitution will prevent this.

* Shahdeen Malik is an eminent lawyer of the Supreme Court and teaches law at the Asia Pacific University. This piece, appearing in the print edition of Prothom Alo, has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir