The Constitutional Law of Bangladesh: Progression and Transformation at Its 50th Anniversary

This book celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Constitution, the first of its kind to portray the journey of constitutionalism in Bangladesh comprehensively with intellectual observations and palatable recommendations for improvement. This book looks back to the constituent assembly debates, intention of the constitution makers and how have those dreams and aspirations have come into realities, what goals have beenachieved, what caused some failures, and what should be its future directions. At such a momentous point in history, it is imperative that its native and foreign constitutional authoritative voices scholarly assess the constitutional design, understand the reasons for its successes and occasional failures, and ventilate their views towards its progressive development to elevate it to a new height in the 21st century and beyond.

The book chapters discuss not only the text of the constitution and some judicial precedents, rather involve in a much larger task of unveiling the interpretative approach of the Constitution from a comparative constitutional law perspective. This book shall project the future roadmap for the journey of constitutionalism in Bangladesh throughout all chapters offering policy recommendations for the revision of the Constitution. 

M Rafiqul Islam is currently an Emeritus Professor of Law at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He studied Economics and Law at The University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh and obtained BA Honours in 1973 and MA in Economics in 1974 and LLB with first class in 1975. He also obtained LLM in 1979 and PhD in 1983, both in International Law, from Monash University, Australia, under the Monash Graduate Scholarships. He has about 45 years of legal teaching and research experience at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at universities in common law jurisdictions spanning both developed and developing countries since March 1975. Professor Islam has been an active legal academic and researcher and has published extensively in his areas of teaching and research interest, mostly in Public International Llaw. His major publications in the main include: International Trade Law of the WTO (Oxford University Press, 2006); An Introduction to International Refugee Law (Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden/Boston, 2013, co-ed);  International Law: Current Concepts and Future Directions (LexisNexis Australia, 2014); National Trials of International Crimes in Bangladesh: Transitional Justice as Reflected in Judgments, Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden/Boston (International Edition); and the University Press Limited, Dhaka (Bangladesh Edition) March 2019. Professor Islam was the Director of Higher Degree Research (PhD and MPhil) and has actively been involved in the administration and supervision of research leading to Master of Research (M Res), M Phil, and PhD degrees. He was awarded the ‘Outstanding Teacher Award’ by Macquarie University in 2000 for his contributions to teaching and higher degree research supervision and administration. Professor Islam is also the recipient of the Macquarie University Arts Faculty Best Higher Degree Research Supervisor Award in 2013 and the Vice Chancellor’s special award ‘in appreciation of [his] service, loyalty and commitments to the University’ in 2016. https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/rafiqul-islam 

 

Muhammad Ekramul Haque PhD is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the Department of Law, University of Dhaka, of which he is also an alumnus. He earned a Gold Medal for his academic achievements at the University. He did his PhD in Constitutional Law and International Law at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has published research articles on Constitutional Law, Human Rights and Muslim Family law in peer-reviewed law journals, authored several law books, and presented papers at many conferences held all over the world including Australia, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Finland, and the US. He has received the Monash Law Deans Award, Monash International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, Monash Graduate Scholarship, and scholarship from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.  Dr Haque is one of the leading scholars in the fields of constitutional law and comparative constitutional law in Bangladesh. His contributions to the study of constitutional law of Bangladesh focus on how comparative constitutional experience and international law reflect and help shape the understanding and developing contents of Bangladeshi constitutional provisions and their interpretations. He is a resource person for the training of Judges and government officials in Bangladesh and member of the Research Group on ‘Cross-Judicial Fertilization: The Use of Foreign precedents by Constitutional Judges’, International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL), and the International Society of Public Law ICON•S. His most recent works are: State Volume Editor, Bangladesh, in the Encyclopedia of Public International Law in Asia, Seokwoo Lee, ed, BRILL NIJHOFF, 2021 and Section Editor, International Handbook of Disaster Research, Springer-Nature (2022). His current works include: Monograph on ‘Bangladesh’ in International Encyclopaedia of Constitutional Law, edited by Professor André Alen and Professor David Haljan, Kluwer Law International (forthcoming) and the co-editor of Implementation of Sustainable Development in the Global South: Strategies, Innovations and Challenges, HART Publishing (forthcoming). https://www.du.ac.bd/body/faculty_details/LAW/333#