Hundreds of lawyers took to the streets inside the court premises on Monday demanding regular functioning of the courts in the face of a 7-day fresh lock-down.
The protesters, who formed a human chain at the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) premises, demanded that the supreme court hold more benches to dispose of the pending court cases.
They made such demand saying that virtual meeting of the court is not enough to deal with the pending cases and the lawyers are not familiar with the advanced technologies on appearing in court ‘virtually’ or online through the use of the digital internet connection.
The lawyers, led by former SCBA secretary Momtaz Uddin Ahmed Mehedi, formed the human chain, saying that the authorities have decided to run only four HC benches during the week-long lock-down that was imposed in a bid to contain death and infection rates of coronavirus.
Mehedi also said that thousands of lawyers and litigants are facing sufferings due to the absence of functioning courts. He and many other lawyers called upon the Chief Justice to operate additional benches for hearing and disposing of more cases.
Advocate Prabir Niyogi, a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, said that more than 50 percent of lawyers have no logistic (digital) support for hearing from their residences. Against this situation, it will be difficult to run the activities of Appellate Division. The apex court can be closed for a week. He said these during a hearing on Sunday.
In response to Prabir Niyogi’s statement, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain said that the Constitutional Court (apex court) cannot be kept closed. “Our neighbouring country India never closed its constitutional court even in Covid-19 situation,” he added.
Some lawyers said that the use of digital technology in daily activities is now essential as it has been proved to be a timely response to the ongoing crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic is an eye-opener for all, especially the legal justice system.
“In a post-pandemic world, we will rely more heavily on the advanced technology. We will change the way we work and adopt the required skills. We must work to become digitally connected and our process must be carried out digitally as best as possible in line with the concept of Digital Bangladesh. Otherwise, the lawyers’ community will remain the back-benchers in the society,” said Advocate Ziaur Rahman, a lawyer.