Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anisul Huq has said that the government has no plan till now to bring any amendment to the Constitution.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday (January 4), he also said that the presidential election will be held in due time as the tenure of the country’s incumbent President M Abdul Hamid expires in April this year. However, they are looking for a new person for the President post.
The minister was talking to reporters after inaugurating a training workshop for lower court judges at the Judicial Administration Training Institute (JATI) in the capital.
Organised with the assistance of the United Kingdom, the four-day workshop is scheduled to hold discussion on case backlog, case management, and ways to dispose of cases swiftly, among other things.
Presided over by Secretary of Law and Justice Division of the ministry Md Golam Sarwar, the inaugural session was addressed, among others, by Justice Maura McGowan of UK High Court and Circuit Judge Khatun Sapnara.
Anisul Huq said, “Till now, we have no plan to amend the country’s constitution. As M Abdul Hamid was elected president of the country for two terms, he can’t be elected president for another term as per the Constitution. Against this backdrop, we will look for a new president,” the law minister said.
On April 24 in 2018, Abdul Hamid took oath as the President of the country for the second consecutive term, which will expire on April 24 this year.
The first five-year tenure of Abdul Hamid expired on April 24 in 2018 as he took office on the same date in 2013. He, however, is the only person of the country who served for a consecutive term.
According to article 123 of the Constitution, the presidential election shall be held between 90 and 60 days before expiry of the five-year term.
The Jatiya Sangsad elects the country’s President. Lawmakers vote in the presidential election, which is supposed to be held in the House with the chief election commissioner acting as the election officer.
The Jatiya Sangsad elected the country’s first president under parliamentary form of government as well as MPs voted to elect a president only once in 1991, when parliamentary democracy was reinstated. The voting for presidential election was redundant in the cases of subsequent presidents since they were elected unopposed.
At the event and after the event, Anisul Huq talked to reporters also on some other issues. Replying to a question on the bail of BNP leaders who are now in jail, he said that not only his ministry, no ministry or any other department of the government is interfering in the judiciary.
“When the court thinks anyone can be released on bail, it gives them bail. Such a thing happens often, where lower courts turn down bail pleas, while the High Court allows those. It is nothing new. The people creating ruckus regarding these, perhaps did not see the tenure of Jatiya Party or BNP governments or don’t want to talk about those experiences,” he added.