Was president’s permission sought?

In a sudden move, the Bangabhaban has asked some eminent citizens of the country to inform the president’s office whether they had taken prior approval of the president before accepting international awards.

A letter issued to the international awardees in this regard on January 3 says: “As per the article 30 of the constitution there is a provision for taking prior approval of the president before accepting any foreign title, honour, award or decoration.”

“But there is no information preserved at this office [Bangabhaban] on the president’s prior approval for country’s all eminent citizens who obtained rare honour. However, preserving this information is the constitutional responsibility of the president’s office,” said the letter.

Therefore, the office has taken initiative to collect and preserve the information on all the eminent citizens who have accepted such foreign title, honour, award or decoration for secretarial purpose, it said.

“It was learnt from news reports published in the media that you have been awarded foreign title, honour, award or decoration. Please inform this office [Bangabhaban] whether the president’s prior approval was taken to this effect,” concluded the letter.

The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the letter signed by Sajjad Hossain Bhuiyan, senior assistant secretary at the president’s office.

Sajjad yesterday said they started sending letters on January 3 and had already sent letters to five to seven eminent citizens, including Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Prof Abdullah Abu Sayeed, and Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

Interestingly, the constitutional provision has never been exercised since it was included in the original constitution of 1972.

Article 30 of the constitution says: “No citizen shall, without the prior approval of the President, accept any title, honour, award or decoration from any foreign state.”

The constitutional provision speaks only for state award and it does not say anything about non-state award or honour. But the Bangabhaban has asked the recipients of all awards to inform it whether they had taken the president’s approval.

When asked about it, Mohammad Shafiul Alam, secretary of public division of the president’s office, said, “What we understood by going through the article 30 of the constitution is that all recipients of international awards need to take prior approval of the president before accepting the awards.”

However, eminent jurist Shahdeen Malik strongly disagrees with the secretary’s explanation.

“This is not meant as a pre-condition for all recipients of title, honour, award or decoration.”

It is applicable to receiving awards from a foreign country with which Bangladesh is either in conflict or in a state of war, he told The Daily Star yesterday, explaining article 30 of the constitution.

He suggested that the government should announce a list of countries and organisations for which the recipients have to take the president’s permission to accept awards.

Secretary Shafiul said some recipients had taken prior approval of the president before accepting foreign awards.

Source: The Daily Star