Repeal of 5th amendment will restore ’72 constitution, says Shafique

Law minister Shafique Ahmed on Sunday said that no amendment would be required to restore the original Constitution framed in 1972 if the Appellate Division upheld the High Court’s verdict that required scrapping of the Fifth Amendment.
‘The repeal of the Fifth Amendment will automatically restore the spirit of the 1972 Constitution…People want the High Court’s verdict to be honoured and materialised as it is a historical judgment reflecting the spirit of our liberation war,’ the law minister told reporters at his office.
The minister said secularism and democracy were integral parts of the basic spirit of the Constitution which was distorted by the Fifth Amendment brought about by a martial law government in 1975. ‘Democracy cannot flourish without secularism…It is a secular system of government,’ said Shafique.
The minister, however, dismissed the apprehension — expressed by pro-BNP lawyers and politicians — that the annulment of the Fifth Amendment meant restoration of the Fourth Amendment that had created the one-party BKSAL system of government in January 1975.
‘A referendum annulled the Fourth Amendment and there is no way of going back to the one-party system,’ he observed.
The High Court on 29 August, 2005 declared that the Fifth Amendment and the Martial Law Regulations issued between August 15, 1975 and April, 1979 were illegal. The Appellate Division, however, stayed the operation of the verdict the same evening.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on May 3 filed a petition seeking permission to appeal against the High Court’s verdict when the present government stopped fighting the legal battle and accepted the verdict. The petition is yet to be heard.
Shafique said that the hearing of the appeal would soon be put in the Supreme Court’s agenda.
‘The appeals in the Bangabandhu Murder Case are at the top of the list, after that comes the Jail Killing Case, and then maybe this one will be heard,’ he said.
Shafique also said that restoring the 1972 Constitution was not the end of everything. ‘There are many parts of the Constitution that need amendment. The government will place them for discussion in the Parliament.’
About the controversy raised by his recent statement that the government would seek the opinion of the Law Commission on constitutional amendments, the minister said, ‘It should not create any controversy as the commission cannot make any law. If we want to frame any law, it will be discussed in the cabinet and the parliament as well.’