The National Lawyers Alliance (NLA), the lawyers’ organisation of the National Citizen Party (NCP), has demanded the cancellation of the current ad-hoc committee of the Bangladesh Bar Council and called for holding the Bar Council election.
Demands have also been made to dissolve the ad-hoc committees of all lawyers’ associations in the country, including the Supreme Court Bar Association, and the Dhaka and Chattogram Bar Associations, and to hold elections. NLA Central Member Secretary Ershadul Bari Khondkar made these demands on behalf of the organisation during a press briefing at the Supreme Court premises on Monday.
The NLA has labeled the current ad-hoc committee of the Bangladesh Bar Council as non-transparent, irresponsible, incompetent, and a failure.
Ershadul Bari Khondkar said, “We are essentially protesting because we expect accountability, acceptability, and transparency. The institution responsible for regulating thousands of lawyers must act with accountability. If it does not, it is a logical demand from the legal community that their ad-hoc committee be dissolved. Furthermore, this is not even provided for in the Bangladesh Bar Council Order; the ad-hoc committee is not based on law.”
Present at the time were Central Convener SM Azmal Hossain Bachchu, Joint Convener Mustafa Azgar Sharifi, Joint Member Secretaries Advocate Nazmus Sakib, Sefayet Ullah, Bishwanath Karmakar, Mary Akter, Chief Organizer Sakil Ahmed, and others.
The NLA lawyers stated that the provision for an ad-hoc committee is not present in the Bar Council Order or its rules. By initially passing 1,914 candidates based on a review petition and then canceling those results, this committee has shown irresponsibility, incompetence, and a lack of transparency, pushing the lives of these young men and women into uncertainty.
This committee has no moral right to be in charge of an institution like the Bar Council. This committee must be dissolved immediately. It is not possible to ensure the transparency of any examination or Bar Council election under this committee, they said.
