Chief justice Syed Refaat Ahmed on Wednesday called upon all stakeholders to renew their commitment to ensuring people-centric justice, marking the observance of National Legal Aid Day.
Speaking at a discussion titled The Role of Legal Aid in Ensuring Justice, organised by the Supreme Court unit of the National Legal Aid Services Organisation at the SC auditorium, to commemorate April 28 as the day, the chief justice urged government officials, members of the bar, judicial officers, the media, and development partners to work collectively to make justice more accessible for the underprivileged.
Appellate Division Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam, Supreme Court Bar Association president AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, Supreme Court registrar general Aziz Ahmed Bhuiyan, and National Legal Aid Services Organisation director Azad Sobhan also addressed the event, among others.
鈥楲egal aid is not a marginal activity 鈥攊t is the lifeline of constitutionalism,鈥� the chief justice said. 鈥業t is the foundation upon which an inclusive and humane justice system must rest. Let this be our collective legacy.鈥�
The chief justice stressed the need for stronger collaboration among all actors in the justice sector to build a legal system that protects the rights of all citizens, especially the most vulnerable.
At the same programe Asaduzzaman urged senior lawyers to take up cases on behalf of distressed and underprivileged litigants.
He noted that in the absence of proper legal representation in such cases, courts often set precedents that go on to affect similar cases across the judicial system.
Asaduzzaman claimed that, unlike in the past, the police are no longer filing politically motivated cases.
鈥業n the past 17 years, nearly 99 per cent of the cases filed by the police were false and fictitious, driven by political vengeance,鈥� he said.
However, the attorney general asserted that the situation has changed under the current administration.
鈥榃hat sets this time apart is that, since coming to power, the police鈥攁s complainants鈥攈ave not filed a single case out of political vendetta. That is our hope for justice,鈥� he said.
Responding to concerns raised by Supreme Court Bar Association president AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, who alleged that false prosecutions continue under the existing legal framework, the attorney general admitted that the culture of politically-motivated cases still persists to some extent.
Citing incidents during the July-August mass protests, Asaduzzaman said that in many cases, victims or complainants filed cases against hundreds of unnamed individuals, and the government had no mechanism to prevent it as police are obligated to record the complaints.
鈥業n such cases, the police are expected to investigate first and take no arbitrary action,鈥� he added.
He further said that he personally drafted a letter requesting the home ministry to issue a circular instructing law enforcement to avoid mass arrests in a case which made several hundred accused.
鈥業n the cases where around 100 people are accused, fewer than 10 per cent have been arrested,鈥� he said.
