Law & Our Rights, The Daily Star

Law & Our Rights, The Daily Star The weekly law page from The Daily Star. Email your submissions to [email protected] The law, like any human invention, defies perfection.

Thus, learned men have, since time immemorial, debated law and justice resulting in a never-ending series of epiphanies, each inching us closer to a complete understanding of the law. This page has been officially created in efforts to make 'Law & Our Rights' Section of the Daily Star Newspaper, which comes out every Tuesday, more popular and rights oriented among our readers and attract the non-r

eaders to it. We aim to provide our fans, followers and readers with fast updates and information regarding legal affairs in an organized way. Stay tuned for more news from the legal world!!!

Md Sayful Islam writes, "The existing architecture is mainly guided by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (...
09/06/2026

Md Sayful Islam writes, "The existing architecture is mainly guided by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) Act 2016, Bangladesh Economic Zones Act 2010, the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) Act 2010, and the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act 2015. Each law has created different regulatory system, and each institution operates under different statutory framework, approval procedures, administrative jurisdictions, and sectoral mandates. This has created multiple investment regimes rather than converging into a cohesive national investment system."

Read the full article here:

Bangladesh has long sought to attract higher levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) to support industrialisation, export diversification, and economic transformation.

"Under Bangladesh’s taxation law, payment of zakat only operates as a deduction to taxable income instead of reducing th...
09/06/2026

"Under Bangladesh’s taxation law, payment of zakat only operates as a deduction to taxable income instead of reducing the tax liability. Consequently, full income tax on the taxable amount remains payable even if the person pays an equal amount of zakat. In my view, this system neither encourages systematic payment of zakat nor addresses rights-based concerns," writes Dr. Md. Mahbubur Rahman.

Under Bangladesh’s taxation law, payment of zakat only operates as a deduction to taxable income instead of reducing the tax liability.

‘Committal Magistracy’ refers to the preliminary hearing in a magistrate’s court where it is determined whether there ex...
09/06/2026

‘Committal Magistracy’ refers to the preliminary hearing in a magistrate’s court where it is determined whether there exists enough evidence against the accused to send the case to be tried to a competent trial court. The complainant merely having a prima facie case does not necessarily mean that the credible evidence exist in their favour. In such circumstances, referring cases with inadequate and mendacious evidence to competent court renders expedited trials almost impossible. To remedy this, a committal magistrate can assess the weight and plausibility of evidence and decide whether it can be sent for trial at all.

Read Parvez Rahman's full article here:

Resolving a case in our country often takes years due to excessive case backlogs, shortage of judges and procedural delays.

Jeba Mobashwira writes, “The Court rejected the argument that the present framework under Article 116 ensures ‘checks an...
02/06/2026

Jeba Mobashwira writes, “The Court rejected the argument that the present framework under Article 116 ensures ‘checks and balances.’ It noted that genuine checks and balances presuppose an effective separation of powers, which is very unlikely to exist where the executive exercises control over the judiciary through the president acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. Thus, such authority, the Court opined, must be vested in the Supreme Court itself. Similarly, the Disciplinary Rules 2017 were declared unconstitutional as they conferred authority over the supervision of judicial officers upon the executive. And finally, the Court directed the formation of an independent and separate Supreme Court Secretariat.”

After the final hearing of the writ petition of Mohammad Saddam Hossen v Bangladesh (2025) case, the High Court Division (HCD) of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (SCOB) directed the establishment of a separate secretariat for the Supreme Court within three months.

Sabrina Hilali writes, “The country still operates under the colonial-era Evidence Act 1872 that categorically treated w...
02/06/2026

Sabrina Hilali writes, “The country still operates under the colonial-era Evidence Act 1872 that categorically treated women’s sexual history as evidence until 2022 amendment, under which questions on “general immoral character or previous sexual behaviour of the victim” can still be asked with permission of the court and “for ends of justice”. Unlike the United Kingdom’s Section 41 r**e shield protections or India’s post-Nirbhaya reforms under Section 53A of the Indian Evidence Act, Bangladesh still lacks a comprehensive r**e shield law.”

The mutilated body of Ramisa Akter, an 8-year-old child r**ed, murdered and beheaded, was recently found in the capital of Bangladesh whose Constitution promises right to life, equality, and protection to every citizen.

"Successive governments in Bangladesh have only paid lip service to the treaties concerning the prohibition of child mar...
20/05/2026

"Successive governments in Bangladesh have only paid lip service to the treaties concerning the prohibition of child marriage. Furthermore, the reservation on the treaties calls seriously into question the sincerity of the state in taking actions to prevent it. If the enactment of the 2017 Act was a step forward, then the special provision incorporated therein took us two steps back. All of these lead to the conclusion that the crisis extends beyond the implementation problem; it is entrenched in the law itself," writes Khalid Khan.

Child marriage is a harmful social vice that impinges on an array of rights of a child and disproportionately impacts girlchildren in particular.

Sabrina Sadia Ria writes, "On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously delivered a landmark ad...
20/05/2026

Sabrina Sadia Ria writes, "On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously delivered a landmark advisory opinion concerning the states’ obligations relating to climate change. Backed by 130 countries, Vanuatu’s initiative led the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ. This historic but non-binding opinion from the world’s highest court marked a substantial jurisprudential development in international climate law, especially providing support to Small Island Developing States. The opinion elucidates two issues: the legal responsibilities of the states, and legal consequences under these obligations for the harms already caused by the states, denoting climate change as an ‘existential threat’. It laid out the binding legal obligations concerning equitable climate governance measures and established breaches as internationally wrongful acts."

On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously delivered a landmark advisory opinion concerning the states’ obligations relating to climate change.

“The South Asian region continues to be an epicentre of the displacement crisis and refugee movement. Most of the crises...
06/05/2026

“The South Asian region continues to be an epicentre of the displacement crisis and refugee movement. Most of the crises experienced by South Asia have somehow become protracted due to the arbitrary administrative practices, executive discretion and the absence of an adequate refugee regulation framework. As all the South Asian countries except Afghanistan never acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention, these countries follow a mercy-based approach instead of a rights-based transparent legal protection mechanism.”

✍️Sakhawat Sajjat Sejan and Md. Rahul Hasan Joy.

The South Asian region continues to be an epicentre of the displacement crisis and refugee movement.

“As we can see, all such disputes involving the determination of title and consequential relief, or issues of share and ...
06/05/2026

“As we can see, all such disputes involving the determination of title and consequential relief, or issues of share and hotchpotch, etc., must be adjudicated by a competent civil court through a properly instituted suit. Under section 145A (5) of the SAT Act, not only section 144 suits but also many other civil-triable cases were transferred to the Tribunal; yet, after prolonged proceedings, they are often dismissed on the ground that the disputes fall within the jurisdiction of the civil court. Such dismissals, added to similar outcomes in regular suits, cause significant hardship to litigants, who endure lengthy proceedings only to have their cases rejected for want of jurisdiction,” writes Rajib Kumar Deb.

The Land Survey Tribunal (and Appellate Tribunal) is constituted under Chapter XVIIA of the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950 (SAT Act).

“The Judicial Reform Commission had put forward a wide range of substantive and long-overdue reform proposals, which req...
06/05/2026

“The Judicial Reform Commission had put forward a wide range of substantive and long-overdue reform proposals, which require systemic changes and resources. It included the formation of national and district-level investigation committees to reduce corruption, the establishment of four types of legal aid and mediation offices, the creation of an independent legal education board, the enhancement of a dedicated mediation law to formally institutionalise Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Bangladesh, etc. Although many of these recommendations have been translated into law, their implementation is still overdue. Against this backdrop, the prompt implementation of this particular recommendation, which is limited solely to a change in name, invites scrutiny,” writes Md. Abdur Rahman Galib.

‘Reform’ was a magic word pronounced innumerable times during the interim government’s time, yet the actual efficacy, urgency, and process of bringing those reforms still remain a matter of debate.

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