Pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers on Monday continued to protest for the second day the elevation of three of the four High Court judges to the Appellate Division, superseding several senior judges, by waiving black flags in the Supreme Court Bar Association building.
They have also been opposing the appointment of AHM Shamsuddiin Choudhury as a justice, terming him ‘a controversial person for many reasons’.
Leaders of the lawyers backed by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its key ally the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami announced that they would
continue with staging demonstrations and hoisting black flags until April 4.
On Monday morning dozens of lawyers led by Jatiyatabadi Ainjibi Forum president Rafiqul Islam Mia and secretary general Mahbub Uddin Khokon staged a sit-in in front of the chief justice’s courtroom for five minutes.
Later, the protestors holding black flags returned to the Bar association building, chanting slogans against Justice Shamsuddin.
The demonstration led to shutting of the door of the chief justice’s courtroom, in which the six judges, including Justice Shamsuddin, were hearing the appeal filed by the government seeking capital punishment for Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah.
Quader was awarded life imprisonment by the International Crimes Tribunal for committing war crimes in 1971.
The door was locked inside at the order of the chief justice, Md Muzammel Hossain, who led the six-member bench.
No lawyer or journalist was allowed to enter or leave the courtroom until the court went for a recess at around 11:00am.
When the court resumed after the recess, it carried on the restriction imposed on entering and leaving the courtroom till the end of the day’s proceedings at about 1:00pm.
‘We notice some people are coming, going and standing in the apex court. It is not a bazaar,’ the chief justice told attorney general Mahbubey Alam when some lawyers and journalists tried to leave the courtroom during the demonstration.
Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain said, ‘There is no instance any where in the world of people entering the apex court in this manner. Only the lawyers whose cases are enlisted for hearing can enter the courtroom in many countries.’
He also said, ‘There is a standing order that no person with electronic devices, such as mobile and camera, will enter the courtroom.’
Journalists can enter the courtroom ‘but there is a judgment of the Supreme Court on what they will write or not,’ said the chief justice.
He said, ‘If you don’t cooperate with us, we will not permit anybody excepting the lawyers of the cases listed for hearing to enter the courtroom.’
The pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers have been expressing their opposition to the elevation of Justice Siddiqur Rahman Miah, Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, and Justice Shamsuddin Choudhury by a
presidential order on Thursday.
The pro-BNP-Jamaat SCBA also requested the chief justice not to administer oaths to the ‘controversial judges’, keeping the interests of the judiciary and the nation in mind. (Source)
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