The Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh was the

constituent assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. It was the country's provisional parliament between 1971 and 1973. In 1972, it drafted and adopted the

Constitution of Bangladesh The Constitution of Bangladesh ( bn, বাংলাদেশের সংবিধান — ), officially the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh ( bn, গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশের ...

. The assembly was dominated by the Awami League, with a minority being independent lawmakers.

Creation

Prior to the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the first general election of Pakistan saw 169 seats in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...

being contested for the National Assembly of Pakistan and 300 seats for the

East Pakistan Provincial Assembly The East Pakistan Provincial Assembly, known as the East Bengal Legislative Assembly between 1947 and 1955, was the provincial legislature of East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971. It was known as the East Bengal Assembly from 1947 to 1955 when the ...

. The Awami League party ran on the platform of developing a new Pakistani constitution based on the 1966 Six Points. The Awami League won 167 out of 169 seats in the National Assembly and 288 out of 300 seats in the Provincial Assembly. Despite gaining the right to form a government, it was not allowed to take power by the erstwhile

military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...

West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...

. The delay in the transfer of power sparked the liberation war. During the war, elected representatives met in

Mujibnagar Mujibnagar ( bn, মুজিবনগর), formerly known as Baidyanathtala (Boiddonathtola) and Bhoborpara, is a town in the Mujibnagar Upazila of Bangladesh. The Provisional Government of Bangladesh was formed on 10 April 1971, however, swor ...

on 17 April 1971. They signed the

Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence The independence of Bangladesh was declared on 26 March 1971 at the onset of the Bangladesh Liberation War by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; the following day the declaration was broadcast by Major Ziaur Rahman in a radio broadcast. On 1 ...

, which was declared as a provisional constitution. The elected representatives were transformed into a constituent assembly. After the war ended, the assembly convened in January 1972.

Members

The initial tally of members was 469. However, the tally dropped to 404 after the war. Ten legislators had died, of whom five were killed by the Pakistan Army. 23 were disqualified or expelled from their party, the Awami League; and two defected to Pakistan.

Shah Abdul Hamid Shah Abdul Hamid 1 ( bn, শাহ আব্দুল হামিদ; 1900 – 1 May 1972) was a Bangladeshi political activist, Awami League politician, legislator and banker. Early life Hamid was born into a Muslim family in the village of ...

was elected as the assembly's speaker and

Mohammad Mohammadullah Mohammad Mohammadullah ( bn, মোহাম্মদ মুহম্মদুল্লাহ; 21 October 1921 – 12 November 1999) was the President of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Mohammadullah became the Acting President on 24 Decemb ...

as deputy speaker.

Rules of Procedure

The Rules of Procedure was adopted in the first two-day plenary session.

Drafting committee

The Constitution Drafting Committee was formed on 11 April 1972. It had 34 members with

Kamal Hossain Kamal Hossain (born 20 April 1937) is a founding leader, lawyer and politician of Bangladesh. He is known as the "father of the Bangladeshi constitution" and regarded as an icon of secular democracy in the Indian subcontinent. Hossain currently ...

as chairman. Razia Banu was its only female member. Barrister Amirul Islam and Advocate

Suranjit Sengupta Suranjit Sengupta (5 May 1945 – 5 February 2017) was a Bangladesh Awami League politician. He resigned in 2012 as the first Railway Minister of Bangladesh. He was the member of parliament from Sunamganj-2 constituency in the Jatiya Sangsad ...

were among the prominent members on the committee. Sengupta was a vocal member of the opposition bench. Members of the committee are included below. The abbreviations MNA stands for "Member of the National Assembly" and MPA for "Member of the Provincial Assembly". #

(MNA- Dhaka-9) # Md. Lutfor Rahman (MNA- Rangpur-4) #

Abu Sayeed Abu Sayeed is a politician from Pabna district of Bangladesh, organizer of the War of Liberation, and former Minister of State for Information who was a Member of Parliament for the then Pabna 8 and Pabna-1 constituencies. Career Sayeed was a ...

(MNA- Pabna-5) # M Abdur Rahim (MPA-Dinajpur-7) # M Amir-ul Islam (MNA- Kushtia-1) # Mohammad Nurul Islam Manjur (MNA- Bakerganj-3) # Abdul Muntakim Chowdhury (MNA- Sylhet-5) # Khatish Chandra (MPA-Bakerganj-15) #

(MNA- Sylhet-2) #

Syed Nazrul Islam Syed Nazrul Islam ( bn, সৈয়দ নজরুল ইসলাম, Soiyod Nozrul Islam; 1925 – 3 November 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician and a senior leader of the Awami League. During the Bangladesh Liberation War, he was declared a ...

(MNA- Mymensingh-17) #

Tajuddin Ahmad Tajuddin Ahmad ( bn, তাজউদ্দীন আহমদ; ; 23 July 1925 – 3 November 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician and statesman. He led the Provisional Government of Bangladesh as its prime minister during the Bangladesh Liberat ...

(MNA- Dhaka-5) # Khandakar Mushtaq Ahmed (MNA- Cumilla -8) # AHM Qamaruzzaman (MNA- Rajshahi-6) # Abdul Mamin Talukder (MNA- Pabna-3) # Abdur Rouf (MNA- Rangpur-11) # Mohammad Baitullah (MNA- Rajshahi -3) # Barrister Badal Rashid, Bar-at-Law. P.A Of

Of Mujib Nagar Sarkar. # Khandaker Abdul Hafiz (MNA- Jessore 7) # Shaukat Ali Khan (MNA- Tangail-2) # Md Humayun Khalid # Asaduzzaman Khan (MPA- Jessore-10) # A.K. Mosharraf Hossain Akhand (MNA-Mymensingh-6) # Abdul Momin # Shamsuddin Molla (MNA-Faridpur-4) # Sheikh Abdur Rahman (MNA-Khulna-2) # Fakir Sahab Uddin Ahmed # Khurshed Alam (MNA-Cumilla-7) # Sirajul Haque (MNA-Cumilla-4) # Dewan Abu Abbas (MNA-Cumilla-5) # Abdur Rashid (MNA-Noakhali-) # Hafez Habibur Rahman (MNA-Cumilla-12) # Nurul Islam Chowdhury (MPA-Chattragram-6) # Muhammad Khaled (MPA-Chattragram—5) # Begum Razia Bano (women's seats, National Assembly)

Citizenship debate

The minority Chakma lawmaker

Manabendra Narayan Larma Manabendra Narayan Larma (September 15, 1939 - November 10, 1983), also known as M.N. Larma, was a Jumma Chakma politician and Member of Parliament of Bangladesh. A leading proponent of the rights of the people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, he ...

protested the use of the term "

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

" to describe all Bangladeshi citizens. Larma said in his speech that "Under no definition or logic can a Chakma be a Bengali or a Bengali be a Chakma… As citizens of Bangladesh we are all Bangladeshis, but we also have a separate ethnic identity...".

Article 70

Under the interim constitution, law making powers resided with the executive branch. When K. M. Obaidur Rahman, an Awami League lawmaker, raised a question as to why the constituent assembly was not given legislative powers, Prime Minister

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengali politi ...

became annoyed. Subsequently, on the advice of the prime minister, President Abu Sayeed Chowdhury introduced the Bangladesh Constituent Assembly (Cessation of Membership) Order 1972. The order stipulated that any resolution by a lawmaker without the approval of his/her party would result in expulsion from the assembly. The order inspired

Article 70 of the Constitution of Bangladesh Article 70 of the Constitution of Bangladesh is a controversial clause restricting voting freedom in the Parliament of Bangladesh, written in the country's constitution. History Article 70 was written as a result of the Bangladesh Constituent As ...

, which bans

free vote A conscience vote or free vote is a type of vote in a legislative body where legislators are allowed to vote according to their own personal conscience rather than according to an official line set down by their political party. In a parliamentary ...

s and

crossing the floor In parliamentary systems, politicians are said to cross the floor if they formally change their political affiliation to a different political party than which they were initially elected under (as is the case in Canada and the United Kingdom). ...

Enactment

The Assembly approved the constitution on 4 November 1972, and it took effect on 16 December 1972—a day commemorated as

Victory day Victory Day is a commonly used name for public holidays in various countries, where it commemorates a nation's triumph over a hostile force in a war or the liberation of a country from hostile occupation. In many cases, multiple countries may ob ...

in Bangladesh. Once the constitution took effect, the constituent assembly became the provisional parliament of Bangladesh until the first elections under the new constitution took place in 1973.

Legacy

The constitution founded the

unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigrou ...

parliamentary republic in Bangladesh. It laid down a list of fundamental rights in Bangladesh. The original 1972 constitution is often cited as the most democratic in Bangladesh's history, given later amendments which undermined the constitution's democratic credentials, including the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of MPs to vote and debate in parliament. However, the constitution left wide powers for

judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incomp ...

and judicial precedent, making Bangladesh a part of the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

world. The first blows to the original constitution came in 1973 and 1974, when Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's government passed amendments that gave the state the power to suspend fundamental rights during a state of emergency. In 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman enacted a

presidential government A presidential system, or single executive system, is a form of government in which a head of government, typically with the title of president, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch in systems that use separation ...

under a

one party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...

. Following his assassination, quasi-military rulers continued the presidential form of government, but restored

multiparty In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coal ...

politics. An executive presidency lasted till 1990, when parliamentary democracy was restored; and the presidency returned to its ceremonial nature. As a result of the controversial Article 70, Bangladesh has never seen a

no-confidence A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...

motion to remove a prime minister, even though the country's prime ministers are often accused of

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

and incompetence. The lack of checks and balances is often criticized. The dominance of left-wing parties led by the Awami League in the constituent assembly resulted in numerous references to

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

in the document. The socialist influence contradicts with Bangladesh's largely free market economy. The citizenship debate of "Bengali v Bangladeshi" contributed to a sense of alienation among the indigenous hill population in the country's southeast, and was seen as a factor behind the

Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict The Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict was a political and armed conflict between the government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts) and its armed wing, the Shanti Bah ...

, which lasted for two decades until 1997. The unitary state laid down by the constitution has been a stumbling block for decentralizing Bangladesh's judiciary. When the government created High Courts in cities like Sylhet, Rajshahi and Chittagong in 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that it was in contradiction of the unitary state.

References

{{reflist

Bangladesh Liberation War Constitution of Bangladesh