Transition of power

The 15th amendment of the Bangladesh constitution is perhaps the most debatable one in the post democratic era that follows the 1990 public upsurge against autocracy. The often pronounced justifications offered for this amendment is the ‘needs’ for returning to the spirit and contents of the founding constitution of 1972 of Bangladesh. Yet the 15th amendment rather accommodates some of the changes brought out by the 5th and 7th amendments, both made by the Martial Law regime and recently declared illegal and unconstitutional by the apex court of the country.
15th amendment, like most of the previous amendments, also largely failed to reflect comparative constitutional studies. Such study is considered essential for learning the experiences of constitutionalism in relevant jurisprudences and borrowing or adapting them in amending a nation’s own constitution. Although the 1972 constitution of Bangladesh was indigenous in part, the 1972 Constituent Assembly (led by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) enriched our constitution by the same process of borrowing and/or adapting from models and concepts of foreign constitutions. For example: collective responsibility of ministers to Parliament and functions of parliamentary committees were taken from UK system, the concept of fundamental principle of state policy from India and Ireland, the provisions of human rights and Judicial review from US constitutional jurisprudence.