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The July National Charter 2025, signed by 24 political parties and the National Consensus Commission on Friday, has three components.

The first component is a prologue that outlines the historical context of the current reform initiatives, a list of 84 reform proposals agreed by majority of the political parties of Bangladesh, and a covenant.

The charter includes over 50 dissenting notes on its 84-point reform agenda.

The charter’s 84-point part calls for adopting Bangladeshi nationalism, recognising all languages used nationwide alongside Bangla, and defining Bangladesh as a state of multiple ethnicities, religions, languages, and cultures.

It proposes a bicameral Jatiya Sangsad with a 100-member upper house elected through proportional representation according to lower-house vote shares.

Other provisions include appointing a deputy speaker from the main opposition and amending Article 70 of the existing constitution to allow MPs to vote freely except on money bills and no-confidence motions.

The reform component also proposes a provision for the presidential impeachment with two-thirds approval from both parliament chambers while it empowers the

president to appoint the heads of specific commissions – constitutional autonomous bodies.

The commissions are the National Human Rights Commission, the Information Commission, the Bangladesh Press Council, the Law Commission, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission.

There is also a proposal that the president will appoint the Bangladesh Bank governor without consulting the prime minister.

The charter bars anyone from holding the offices of prime minister and party chief simultaneously. A selection committee — comprising the speaker, prime minister, opposition leader, deputy speaker, and a representative from the third-largest party — would select the caretaker government chief adviser.

It mandates holding the local government elections under the Election Commission, the formation of the district coordination councils with local representatives, and the extension of the Right to Information Act 2009 to political parties.

For judicial reforms, it proposes an independent Judicial Appointment Commission for Supreme Court judges, a Supreme Court secretariat, a permanent Attorney General Service, an independent investigation body, and a judicial code of conduct.

The charter also calls for an independent commission to investigate the 2024 mass killing and past incidents of vote rigging, the creation of a permanent Public Administration Reform Commission, and amendments to the Official Secrets Act 1923.

To curb corruption, it recommends amending Article 20(2) of the constitution to prevent misuse of power for illicit wealth, appointing an ombudsman, enacting beneficial ownership laws.

To eliminate corruption, it also recommends a mechanism to curb money laundering by high-ranking officials, ensuring transparency in election spending, and bringing private sector corruption under punitive measures.

Finally, the covenant asserts the legal and political legitimacy of the July uprising, pledging honour for the martyred and injured, and binds signatory parties not to challenge the document in court.

Amid protest by a group of people, who claimed themselves as July warriors, the commission revised the fifth section of the covenant, including legal indemnity for them.

Of the 84 reform points outlined in the July Charter, 47 are related to constitutional amendment.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its like-minded parties and allies put up dissenting notes on at least eight reform proposals related to constitutional amendments.

The proposals carrying BNP dissents include the president’s exclusive power to appoint the Bangladesh Bank governor and the chiefs of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, a bar on a lawmaker’s dual role as the prime minister and a party chief.

The proposals with BNP dissents also include shared votes-based proportional representation in the proposed upper house, the power of the upper house to deal with bills from the lower house, and the inclusion of provisions on the proposed committees to select the ombudsman, the comptroller and auditor general, and the chiefs  of the Public Service Commission,  and the Anti-Corruption Commission.

The BNP also gave its dissent on three of the 21 steps to select the chief adviser of the caretaker government, announcing the upper house candidates before the national elections, and ratification of any international treaty, related to national interests and state security, by lower and upper houses. 

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami has extended dissenting notes on at least three of the constitutional amendment-related points.

The three dissenting notes go against collecting proposed candidates for the chief adviser position from ‘only registered parties’, the empowerment of the Supreme Judicial Council, and the autonomy of local government for managing financial issues. 

The Islami Andolan Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Khelafat Islam, and the Bangladesh Nezam-e-Islam Party put up their dissents on the charter’s provisions for increasing women’s representation in the Jatiya Sangsad.