Government MPs violated the July National Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order by not taking oath as members of the “Constitution Reform Council,” Jamaat-e-Islami lawyer Mohammad Shishir Monir said. He said opposition MPs had taken oath both as members of parliament and of the Constitution Reform Council, but ruling-party MPs had not. He was speaking on Thursday at a news conference at the Supreme Court Bar’s Shaheed Shafiur Rahman auditorium, organised by Jamaat’s lawyers’ body, the Bangladesh Lawyers’ Council, on the theme “Constitution amendment committee, referendum, July Charter and the Fifteenth Amendment case verdict: present reality and the future of democracy.” The senior Supreme Court lawyer presented the keynote paper.
Present were Lawyers’ Council president Advocate Jasim Uddin Sarkar, secretary general Advocate Matiur Rahman Akand, Barrister Najib Momen MP, National Democratic Party chairman Tasmia Prodhan MP, former chief prosecutor Tajul Islam, senior lawyer Mohammad Hossain Lipu and Barrister ASM Shahriar, among others. The conference said that under Article 7 of the July National Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order 2025, a Constitution Reform Council should be formed immediately to complete the reform process. Shishir Monir complained that a special committee had recently been formed to amend the current constitution and place its proposals before parliament, but that the Constitution Reform Council of MPs required under the referendum provision had not in fact been formed. He also alleged that the government was calling the 2025 implementation order illegal and had scrapped several important ordinances, including the human rights commission, despite promising to amend and re-enact them, with no effective step visible so far.
Shishir Monir said turnout in the 12 February referendum was 60.26 percent, and that while the opposition alliance’s elected representatives took the dual oath, the ruling side’s elected members refused to take oath as Constitution Reform Council members, thereby violating the 2025 order. Criticising the previous government, he said enforced disappearances, killings, torture and the “Ayna Ghar” (mirror house) had been daily realities, and that the Fifteenth Amendment had been added to entrench autocratic rule — rewriting the constitution, abolishing the caretaker government system and scrapping the referendum. “Years of gross abuse of power bred despair and deep anger among people. In July 2024 that long-suppressed anger exploded. The 16-year autocratic order was swept away by the tide of the people, an interim government was formed, and it set out on a path of justice, reform and elections as an expression of the people’s sovereign will. The election has been held and the trial process continues, but state reform remains incomplete,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report