Frequent confrontations between district bar association leaders or law officers and judges have been causing sufferings to justice seekers, creating distance between judges and bar leaders and thus eroding public trust in the courts.
Recent bar-bench conflicts consistently involved lawyer leaders of ruling Awami League-dominated bars.
The High Court eventually has to summon such errant lawyers or law officers on charge of contempt of court due to misbehaviour or misconduct with judges.
The High Court, however, relieves such bar leaders and law officers of the contempt proceedings with warnings as the pro-AL Supreme Court Bar Association leaders apologise in the High Court on behalf of the accused pro-AL lawyers.
Senior lawyers observe that confrontations occur when district bar leaders and law officers demand decisions in their favour and some judicial officers refuse to entertain such undue demands.
They suggest exercising democracy in the district bars by ensuring fair elections to the bars to elect proper leaders.
‘It is true that district bar leaders, who are elected from the pro-ruling party panels, want to show their powers in courts,’ said senior lawyer and former Bangladesh Bar Council vice-chairman Yusuf Hussain Humayun.
Conflicts also occur as judicial officers too try to dominate the courtrooms for they consider themselves ‘all-knowing’ while lawyers show that they are not ‘subordinate’ to the judges, said Humayun, also a former Supreme Court Bar Association president elected from a pro-AL panel.
‘It is very unfortunate that conflicts between lawyers and judges are increasing,’ he added.
‘The law minister can take an initiative to separately sit with the top leaders of the prominent bar associations as well as the district judges or the judges’ association to stop recurrence of unprofessional conduct on the part of lawyers and the judges in future,’ said Humayun, also the convenor of the pro-AL Bangabandhu Awami Ainjibi Parishad.
Bangladesh Bar Council executive committee member Zainul Abedin refrained from making comments on the allegations, stating that the issue might come to the council.
According to Zainul, also a former pro-BNP president of an SCBA dominated by pro-BNP lawyers, such incidents occur in those district bar associations which came to be dominated by pro-AL lawyers after elections were held in the associations in unfair ways.
There were at least 20 incidents of confrontation between lawyers and judicial officers in recent years.
The boycott by the Brahmanbaria District Bar Association of all courts in the district till January 24 from January 2, for the removal of district and sessions judge Sharmin Niger, Women and Children Repression (Prevention) Tribunal-1 judge Mohammad Faruq and the tribunal’s clerk Mominul Islam Chowdhury on the grounds of their misbehaviour with lawyers and alleged corruption, is the latest incident of conflict between the pro-AL lawyers and judges.
The seekers of justice have, meanwhile, been suffering as the lawyers in the district continued their boycott of the courts of the district judge and the tribunal judge for their transfer.
The court boycott was partially postponed on January 14 on the assurance made by law minister Anisul Huq, elected Member of Parliament for the Brahmanbaria-4 constituency, at a meeting with the leaders of the district’s bar association at his residence.
The conflict between the bench and the bar worsened as the district judge on January 9 lodged a complaint with the chief justice against 21 lawyers for demonstrating and making indecent remarks against her when she was in the courtroom on January 5 and 8.
The tribunal judge, too, lodged a complaint with the CJ office on January 4, saying that the three lawyers, together with more than 10 others, asked him to leave the courtroom on January 2, and sought a High Court action against the lawyers involved in the incident.
The High Court on Tuesday adjourned until February 14 the scheduled hearing on the contempt complaints against the Brahmanbaria District Bar Association president Md Tanvir Bhuiyan and two other members over the allegation of misconduct with the district’s judicial officers.
The bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil deferred the hearing that was scheduled for January 17 as Supreme Court Bar Association president Momtazuddin Fakir and secretary Md Abdun Nur Dulal sought time for two months to explain the position of the accused in the alleged incidents.
He, however, told the court that the SCBA was trying to solve the dispute in an out-of-court settlement in a decent manner.
The HC asked the contemnors to appear before it again on February 14.
The High Court also scheduled for January 23 the contempt proceedings against the association’s general secretary Mofizur Rahman Babul and 20 other lawyers over the same issue.
Asked to comment on frequent incidents of conflict between pro-AL bar association leaders and judicial officers, jurist Shahdeen Malik said that such incidents usually stemmed from arrogance of some bar leaders, adding that justice seekers eventually suffer due to such conflicts between bars and benches.
According to the Bangladesh Bar Council’s former executive member for legal aid ZI Khan Panna, such incidents have been occurring frequently as corruption has gripped the lower judiciary.
He blamed the Bangladesh Bar Council for appointing advocates without proper scrutiny and the government for appointing unskilled and inexperienced judges.
Earlier, on October 17, 2022, the High Court summoned Pirojpur public prosecutor Khan Md Alauddin to appear before it on November 15, 2022 to explain his ‘disrespectful’ behaviour with the district’s chief judicial magistrate and obstructing the magistrate in discharging his judicial functions.
The HC issued the rule after the chief judicial magistrate, Abu Zafar Md Noman, lodged a complaint with the Supreme Court’s registrar general seeking action against the public prosecutor, who is also the district Awami League publicity affairs secretary.
The complaint was forwarded to the Chief Justice who later assigned an HC bench to hear and dispose of the matter over the bail prayer of Ahsan Real Estate and Builders Group’s adviser Hafizur Rahman Siddique on July 25, 2022.
The chief judicial magistrate, during a hearing, had asked all except the designated lawyers for the case to leave the courtroom as the court noticed chaos between a group of lawyers seeking Hafiz’s bail and another group of lawyers opposing the bail prayer.
Public prosecutor Alauddin and judge Noman engaged in an altercation as the PP stayed in the courtroom flouting the court’s order of leaving the courtroom.
The judge asked the PP to leave the courtroom as he had no function in the case as both parties to the case were present before the court.
The HC also observed that PP Alauddin committed a criminal offence by obstructing the judge in discharging his judicial functions as he disobeyed the order of the court. The High Court further observed that the public prosecutor Alauddin unduly showed his power.
On November 1, 2022, the High Court summoned Khulna Bar Association president Saiful Islam and his two juniors for misbehaving with the Land Survey Tribunal’s former judge Nirmulendra Das.
The HC asked the three lawyers to explain in four weeks why they shouldn’t be punished for contempt of court as they misbehaved with Nirmulendra, now a joint district judge, and called him a corrupt and dishonest judge.
The court passed the order after taking cognisance of a complaint filed by Nirmulendra with the office of the chief justice on September 22, 2022 to redress his grievance.
According to the complaint, Khulna bar president Saiful with his juniors on September 3, 2022 misbehaved with the judge and created chaos in the courtroom to obstruct justice after Nirmulendra rejected a petition seeking an adjournment of hearing of a land dispute case pending with the court.
The Pirojpur PP and the Khulna district bar president and his juniors were cleared of the contempt proceedings after they apologised in the HC.
SCBA secretary Md Abdun Nur Dulal told New Age on Monday that such incidents had been occurring all along and the High Court in the contempt cases mentioned exonerated the accused lawyers of the charges as they apologised regretting their professional mistakes.
