Full verdict on illegal Operation Clean Heart published

On September 13, 2015, the High Court bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Ashraful Kamal scrapped the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003. The court said that any aggrieved person or victim of the operation can seek compensation from the government. They can file writ petition with the High Court or file any civil or criminal case with any other court. It also found that the law which provides indemnity to security force personnel violates the constitution. The verdict came in response to a writ petition filed by Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna, challenging the act on June 14, 2012. The full verdict is a 52-page text. The BNP-Jamaat alliance government passed the act on February 24, 2003 to give indemnity to military and men from the law enforcement agencies who carried out the countrywide operation from October 16, 2002 to January 9, 2003, saying that the operation was meant to restore law and order in the country. The law says no victim can seek justice, no cases or petitions can be filed against anyone involved with the operation. Media reported that many people died during the operation though the government claimed that they died in heart attacks. The full verdict said that the idea of the supremacy of the Constitution is at the core of constitutional democracy and governance and the guarantee and protection of fundamental rights are the centre-piece of the Constitution. The members of the joint forces, or for that matter, the law-enforcing personnel are not above the law of the land, the verdict read. “We have already observed that no one is above law and everybody is subject to law. Any sort of deliberate torture on the victims in the custody of the joint forces or law-enforcing agencies is illegal, unconstitutional and condemnable. In that event, they have the right to seek the protection of the law in any independent and impartial Court or Tribunal, as the case may be.” “Custodial death is the worst form of violation of human rights. Even a hard-core criminal has the right to be tried in the competent Court of law for his alleged perpetration of crimes. He cannot be physically annihilated or killed by the members of the joint forces for his alleged crimes.” The law-enforcing agencies or the joint forces cannot take the law into their own hands and by doing so, they have infringed the relevant provisions of the Constitution, the court said. “It is true that criminal liability of a person is his personal liability. But none the less, the State cannot shy away from its responsibility for the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the public functionaries.” “The State must be called to account for the unlawful and unconstitutional State-actions during the ‘Operation Clean Heart’,” it added. The court in its judgment said that protection of an individual from torture and abuse by the police and other law-enforcing agencies is a matter of deep concern in a free society. Custodial torture is a naked violation of human dignity which destroys, to a very large extent, the individual personality. It is a calculated assault on human dignity.