President: No gazette necessary for lower court judges’ service rules

On Sunday evening, Senior Assistant Secretary Moshtaq Ahmed confirmed in a notice saying “the president has determined that it is not necessary to issue a gazette notice.” The December 2, 1999 Appellate Division verdict in the historic State v Masdar Hossain case, mandated the drafting of a 12-point guideline on the separation of the judiciary from the executive. For several years, the Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings, asking the government to issue a gazette notification on the finalised rules. The court declared the judicial service independent of the executive and dissolved the judicial cadre of the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) on the grounds that it was incompatible with the Constitution. The judiciary was separated from the executive on November 1, 2007. The apex court also issued a set of directives to the government, asking it to outline the process of separating the judiciary from the executive. A set of rules relating to the service of subordinate court judges had previously been drafted. [YUMPU epaper_id="75" width="800" height="430"] But on August 28 this year, the Appellate Division declared the government's draft rules to be in contradiction to the verdict in the Masdar Hossain case because the draft was similar to the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1985. The finalised rules were scheduled to be presented before the court on November 6. They were not submitted. The Appellate Division ordered the government to write down the steps taken to finalise the rules and submit them. The date to issue the order was set for November 14. The attorney general submitted a petition, seeking time, which the apex court found “unclear” and ordered the rules to be finalised and gazetted by November 24. Again, the government did not comply. On December 1, the government secured a one-week extension of the deadline to issue the gazette notification because both the law minister and the attorney general were abroad. An apparently irate Appellate Division on December 8 summoned two secretaries of the Law Ministry the next day for failing to comply with its November 14 order. The order was passed by an appellate bench of eight justices, led by Chief Justice SK Sinha, after a hearing of a fresh time extension petition.