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READER’S queries

Your Advocate
Q: I am a lawyer intending to join the Bar soon. I regularly go through your column with keen interest. I enjoy your answers and in fact feel enlightened. In the recent past I noticed in the newspapers that lawyers are divided on the point of appointment of some judges as judges of the Appellate Division superseding their seniors. Later there were serious movement for removal of a high court judge on corruption charge and ultimately the judge was removed. Presently lawyers have again gone into movement against appointment of some new judges in the High Court Division demanding cancellation of their appointments calling these appointment tainted with political considerations and not made on their eligibility. Serious questions about their educational standard has also arisen. Sir my questions are: a) how the judges of the High Court Division are appointed b) can it be said that the persons who are practising in the High Court for a long time are incapable of writing something in English or Bengali correctly? c) Does the Government have any benefit in giving appoint to such persons, if any? d) If the Supreme Court suffers can anybody be benefited? e) How the chief justice is responsible in such appointments if there is no provision for consultation with him?
Aardar Habibur Rahman
Bogra.
Your Advocate: You have raised one of the very sensitive ongoing issues. The appointment of 19
judges at the same time that too, immediately before the long vacation is gong to be the most controversial appointments in the history of appointment of judges of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Bar has immediately reacted and protested the appointment on various grounds that you seem to have already noticed. And the Bar is still on movement demanding cancellation of the appointments. In this background let me take up your questions and answer them on after another.
First, appointments of the Judges of both the Divisions of the Supreme court including the Chief justice are made by the President by virtue of his power conferred upon him under Article 95 of the Constitution. Save in cases of appointment of the Chief Justice all other appointments are made by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice. Though the earlier consultation clause is no more in existence in the Constitution it goes by convention which does have the fore oflaw.
Your second question goes deep into our misfortune. The declining standard of our legal education, unmanageable influx of juniors at the Bar from different socio-economic background, lack of senior lawyers to maintain and train up the juniors, erosion of old values and an overall situation akin to free-style prevailing at the Bar have contributed to the falling standard in which it is hardly possible to say who can write a sentence or cannot write a sentence correctly. I, as a member of the Bar do believe that if there was a statistics of such standard the number of such lawyers on show might have been alarming. The degeneration in legal education and at the Bar has seriously contributed to declining standard of the Bench as well.
In reply to your third question I must say that neither the Government nor anybody else in this country can be benefited by appointing inefficient persons as judges. More so Govt. is the single largest litigant. If the quality judgements could not be produced virtually the institution for that matter the whole nation will suffer. But in our present day reality one can no more rule out the possibility of giving appointments more in considerations of political affiliations than of efficiency. Lawyers have come to protest asserting their personal knowledge and experiences in respect of many who are given appointments.
Your fourth questions possibly stands addressed in the reply to the third so I think no separate treatment is necessary.
Lastly, the question of responsibility of the Chief Justice in matters of such appointment. On this point the lawyers view is that after all no appointment can be made without consultation with him. Moreover, they demanded not to administer oath to the newly appointed judges but he didn't respond positively to the Bar's demand. The crisis, therefore, emerged.
Your advocate M. Moazzam Husain is a lawyer of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. His professional interests include civil law, criminal law and constitutional law.