Editorial
HC's dissolution of 7th Amendment
Constitution's sanctity restored, people's will made supreme
After the momentous Supreme Court verdict that cancelled the Fifth Amendment to the constitution, the nation has got another occasion to rejoice over the historic High Court judgement that has nullified the Seventh Amendment to the constitution introduced during the military rule by General H. M. Ershad.
By these two epoch-making verdicts the apex court of the country has invalidated all the ordinances and rules issued by the past military rulers to justify their usurpation of state power through extra-constitutional means.
We welcome and celebrate the verdict of the High Court as it has only reiterated the inviolability of the constitution and restored its supremacy. And by these verdicts of the highest court, it has also been re-established that it is the people's will that is ultimate, and not the whims and caprice of the so-called strongmen and dictators.
The former military ruler Ershad usurped state power and suspended the constitution by deposing the then elected president Justice Abdus Sattar on March 24, 1982 through a military putsch. And on November 10, 1986 he used his subservient parliament to pass the seventh amendment to the constitution to put a seal of legality on his illegal capture of power and other unconstitutional activities that he had carried out during the intervening period.
But in spite of the military dictator's attempt to perpetuate his power and cover up his misdeeds by abusing the constitution, he could never bludgeon the people into submitting to his will. On the contrary, the people continued their struggle against his autocratic rule and finally unseated him at the peak of a mass democratic and anti-autocracy movement in December 1991. The High Court's judgement against the seventh amendment to the constitution has therefore provided the legal sanction to what the people had achieved through the exercises of the democratic struggle on the street.
And through this landmark judgement, the highest court has also paved the way for discarding the destructive political culture that was introduced in the country through the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with his family members on August 15, 1975.
This national tragedy marked the rise of the era of unforeseen politics of killing and military rule. But Ershad's grabbing of state power following in the footsteps of his military predecessors put, as it were, an added dimension to it all by opening up the floodgate of corruption in the country.
But the mass movement that rejected him along with his wrongdoings and the apex court's judgement that condemned his unconstitutional acts to the garbage bin of history have again proved that forcible seizure of power through extra-constitutional means is temporary. On the other hand, the People's Will is final and supreme.
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