Does a strong mandate mean unlimited authority?

On February 12, voters in Bangladesh endorsed a sweeping programme of constitutional reform. With 68.59 percent of valid votes in favour, the July National Charter secured a mandate strong enough to reshape the country’s institutional future. But the strength of a mandate and the scope of authority are not the same. The scope of what the referendum authorised is now the central question of the transition ahead.

In public debate, a powerful inference has taken hold: the people voted “yes” and, therefore, institutional redesign is authorised in full. This inference is emotionally compelling but logically unsustainable.

The 2026 referendum was neither a constitution-founding rupture nor a blank cheque for institutional reconstruction. It was a powerful but structured act of authorisation. The distinction matters because transitions succeed when authority is precisely interpreted and designated. This position rests on four arguments concerning source, scope, function, and limits of authority.

Let’s begin with the derivative authority argument. Constitution-founding acts replace prior constitutional frameworks; they do not operate under them. The 2026 referendum, however, was conducted on the basis of the pre-negotiated July charter. It invoked the framework instead of suspending the existing constitution. Had this been a founding moment, the prior order would have been declared void explicitly and a new constitutional order announced in its place. That did not occur. The referendum chose ratification within an existing architecture rather than rupture beyond it.

It may be argued that the July mass uprising itself constituted a break with the prior order and that the referendum merely confirmed that sovereign rupture. But constituent authority must be exercised explicitly, and when it chooses to channel itself through a negotiated framework, it accepts the structure it adopts. Constituent power is unlimited only at the moment of replacement; once it operates through specified procedures and recorded conditions, it becomes self-limiting by design. An act that presupposes an existing framework cannot simultaneously claim to transcend it. A procedure conducted under a negotiated charter cannot later be re-characterised as supra-constitutional without collapsing the distinction between reform and replacement. Even a revolutionary context does not automatically transform structured ratification into founding rupture.

In a democracy, sovereignty is expressed through specified procedures. A majority can change a constitution, but it cannot silently change the question it was asked. The July charter recorded dissents and conditional agreements. Voters were asked whether they approved the reform framework; they were not asked whether they wished to nullify the recorded objections embedded within it. Ratification confirms a document as presented; it does not excise its internal terms. To treat a general “yes” as implicitly erasing those terms is to convert negotiated ratification into retroactive nullification and to expand consent beyond specification. Derivative authority, by definition, cannot be used to extinguish the very conditions under which it was granted.

The mandate specificity argument extends this logic to scope. A democratic mandate binds only to the extent that it is specific. The referendum ballot bundled multiple reforms into a single approval question. It did not present discrete alternatives concerning, for example, proportional representation in the Upper House under the so-called sidenote doctrine. A bundled endorsement can generate a mandate of direction, but it cannot generate granular authorisation for contested institutional components that were never separately placed before voters. Package endorsement is not component authorisation.

This is but a form of institutional realism. If broadly worded approval is treated as precise instruction on disputed mechanisms, previously recorded dissents become provisional. Political actors will rationally infer that negotiated limits are expendable once a majority is secured. Future negotiations will be viewed not as binding compromise but as temporary theatre. Reform built on that incentive structure does not consolidate; it cycles.

The institutional agency argument follows naturally. Referendums authorise direction; legislatures design implementation. This division is not elitist caution but the architecture of constitutional governability. Some will invoke popular sovereignty and insist that once the people have spoken directly, parliament must merely execute their will. But popular sovereignty is supreme in source, not self-executing in form. It authorises; it does not draft statutes.

A referendum expresses collective direction at a high level of generality. Implementation requires statutory drafting, sequencing, institutional calibration, and reconciliation of competing principles within the existing constitutional framework. Those tasks require bounded legislative agency. Recognising that agency does not subordinate popular sovereignty; it institutionalises it. Parliament does not rival the people; it translates authorised direction into legally coherent form. Reducing parliament to mechanical execution would not elevate sovereignty; it would hollow out the institutional process through which sovereignty acquires durable effect. Reform requires fidelity to mandate and responsibility in implementation. The two are sequential, not antagonistic. But institutional agency itself is bounded by the terms of delegation.

The ultra vires argument makes this limit explicit. Delegated authority is limited authority. The July National Charter (Constitutional Reform) Implementation Order, 2025, which structured the referendum, derives its validity from the Charter framework that authorised it. A derivative instrument cannot exceed the terms of its delegation.

If the referendum question did not explicitly authorise the cancellation of recorded dissents, then an implementation mechanism that nullifies them is ultra vires: it exceeds the lawful competence delegated to it. A delegated instrument cannot invalidate the very conditions from which its authority flows. These limits are not technical restraints but rather safeguards of democratic credibility. Some will respond that the revolutionary context demands expansive interpretation. But founding authority must declare itself as such; it does not hide inside derivative procedure. Others will argue that democratic renewal requires boldness rather than restraint. Yet boldness without structure shortens the lifespan of change. Reform that stretches its mandate beyond explicit authorisation invites de-legitimation. Reform perceived as procedurally faithful endures longer than reform perceived as opportunistic.

Beneath these disputes lies a deeper democratic principle. Democracy is not merely majority rule; it is majority rule exercised under conditions that render minority compliance rational and legitimate. That requires credible commitment. Political actors must believe that agreements ratified today will not be retroactively reinterpreted tomorrow. Popular sovereignty does not exist as raw force; it exists as specified authorisation. When authority expands beyond the question presented to the electorate, sovereignty ceases to be consent and becomes interpretation.

Dr Kazi ASM Nurul Huda 
is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Dhaka and Zuzana Simoniova Cmelikova Visiting International Scholar in Leadership and Ethics at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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