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The National Citizen Party on Saturday said that a new constitution must be formulated through a constituent assembly to ensure a sustainable implementation of the July Charter.

NCP member secretary Akhter Hossen affirmed the demand in a press conference at the party’s central office in Dhaka while presenting the party’s observations on the draft of the July Charter.

It still remains unclear how the July Charter will be implemented, he said.

‘In the Consensus Commission discussions, we  talked about the fundamental principles of the constitution, constitutional amendments and framework, reserved seats for women, the presidential election and powers, provisions for pardon, emergency powers, the tenure of the prime minister, holding multiple offices, and other constitutional and statutory matters. These are directly related to the constitution,’ he commented.

‘The commitments in the July Charter suggest a tendency to leave major issues to be decided by the next parliament. This way, the reform proposals on which we have already agreed cannot be implemented sustainably,’ he said.

‘There is no alternative to formulating a new constitution for a sustainable implementation [of the July Charter],’ he added.

Citing an example, he said that the draft reform proposal to establish High Court branches in the divisional cities was similar to the eighth amendment of the constitution, which was later challenged and declared invalid by the higher judiciary. ‘The same risk exists here, too,’ he added.

‘The July Charter has conceived a fundamental transformation of the internal governance structure of the constitution. To achieve that, a new constitution must be written — one that cannot be questioned in the High Court or the Supreme Court, especially about the basis of the foundations of the new constitution,’ he added.

He also stated that while the amendments and proposals mentioned in the July Charter draft were intended to take precedence over the constitution, the reality is that the original constitution cannot be overridden.

‘The core constitution cannot be questioned, but any amendment [to it] can be challenged in the Supreme Court. This possibility remains here as well. Therefore, to ensure the effectiveness [of the July Charter], an LFO (Legal Framework Order) must be introduced, a constituent assembly elected, and the points we have agreed upon in the July Charter must be included as guiding principles of the new constitution,’ he said.

Akhter further said that the consensus commission had reached an agreement on policy matters but the drafting of texts has not been discussed in this regard.

‘This should be done by the representatives who come through the constituent assembly,’ he added.

He also said that more than 60–70 per cent of the existing constitution would undergo changes because of the reform. Such a large-scale change is equal to rewriting the constitution, he further added.

‘Since essentially we have to write the constitution anew from the beginning to the end, then why some people oppose introducing a new constitution creates ambiguity,’ he added.