Bangladesh News

The executive magistrates, members of admin cadres, are pressing hard for getting back the power to take cognisance of offences for trial.

They lost the authority in separation of the judiciary from the executive in 2007.

Senior leaders of Bangladesh Administrative Service Association (Basa) are lobbying government policymakers to consider the demand, said sources.

They are trying to convince the high-ups that executive magistrates should be able to take judicial note of some offences to ‘keep the administration active and promote good governance’.

If the executive magistrates are authorised to take cognisance of offences, the judicial magistrates will complete the rest of the trial proceedings. And that would undermine the spirit of separation of the judiciary, said Bangladesh Judicial Service Association (BJSA).

Admin service leaders have already met members of the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and parliamentary affairs to convince them of the need to reinstate the cognisance power for the executive magistrates.

The standing committee, assigned to scrutinise the bill to introduce laws on separation of the judiciary, will hear both sides at a meeting today, said Abdul Matin Khasru, a member of the committee and former law minister.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, he said, “We won’t go beyond the framework of the historic judgment on judiciary separation and article 22 of the constitution.”

In April 2007, the immediate past caretaker government promulgated two ordin ances amending the Code of Criminal Procedure to separate the judiciary from the executive in light of the Supreme Court directives.

The ordinances took effect on November 1 that year.

Despite being recommended by the special committee of parliament for ratification, the ordinances ceased to have effect on February 25, as they were not ratified within the stipulated time limit.

Later though, the government tabled a bill in parliament to enact laws necessary for continuation of the separation. The bill has been sent to the parliamentary standing committee on law ministry for scrutiny.

At a meeting last Thursday, the standing committee decided to seek both admin and judicial service officials’ opinions on the matter.

Administrative cadres had been bitterly opposed to separation of the judiciary.

The separation stripped the executive magistrates of the authority to take cognisance of offences and hold trial.

It also restricted their powers to issuing search and arrest warrants, committing someone in custody, ordering measures to keep the peace and disperse unlawful assembly, and giving immediate injunctions in case of public nuisance.