The government on Thursday appointed 265 lawyers as law officers to represent the state at the Supreme Court, including 86 deputy attorneys general and 179 assistant attorneys general.
The appointments were made through separate notifications issued by the Solicitor Wing of the Law and Justice Division under the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. The notifications, issued by order of the President, were signed by Solicitor Sana Md Mahroof Hossain.
The notifications also revoked the appointments of all previously serving law officers.
Following the reshuffle, the Attorney General’s Office now has a total of 269 law officers, including the attorney general, three additional attorneys general, 86 deputy attorneys general and 179 assistant attorneys general.
Officials at the Attorney General’s Office said this was the highest number of state law officers ever appointed in a single day.
The appointments come months after TIMES of Bangladesh published a report on Jan 3 titled “Attorney General’s Office: A Political Rehab Centre.”
The report said that 335 state law officers had been appointed to the Attorney General’s Office, most of whom were supporters of different political parties, including the BNP, Awami League and Jamaat-e-Islami. It noted that the number of law officers appointed to the Attorney General’s Office was unprecedented in the history of Bangladesh’s judiciary.
Legal experts had also criticised the size of the Attorney General’s Office during the Awami League government’s tenure, when the number of state law officers exceeded 200, saying it was far beyond operational requirements.
