Bangladesh, India recognise their constitutions as 'living documents': Chief Justice of India

Bangladesh and India share the tradition of constitutional and judicial systems with the aim to ensure stability and both nations recognised their constitutions as "living documents", Indian Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said today (24 February).

"Our shared tradition aims to ensure stability, but when stability is desired, it must never be confused with stagnation," he said while addressing the valedictory session of the two-day International Conference on 'South Asian Constitutional Courts in the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from Bangladesh and India' at Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC), Indian-daily The Hindu reported. 

He further said, "We recognise our constitutions are living documents. The constitutions of Bangladesh and India proclaim that they are 'given to the people by the people themselves' as citizens of sovereign nations." 

Chief Justice of Bangladesh Justice Obaidul Hassan, Law Minister Anisul Huq and Justice M Enayetur Rahim of the Appellate Division also spoke at the programme, The Hindu report added. 

Independent judiciary key to country's development: PM Hasina

"The Indian and Bangladeshi court systems should encourage the enhanced practice of mediation for dispute resolution, discarding 'adversarial litigations'," Chief Justice of India Chandrachud said.

"The adversarial litigation in India and Bangladesh is a colonial import [where] one person wins and another person loses in the court." 

There were other alternative forms of dispute resolution such as mediation which was the "traditional form of dispute resolution in our society", he said, adding, "it is important to build on what we have."

He further said the mediation reappeared with greater validity to face modern-day challenges like matrimonial disputes while the system suits the South Asian social norms.

Chandrachud pointed out how the judge's role in the post-colonial era was undergoing a change (in both countries) as he said, "Our traditional role is to resolve a dispute between 'A' and 'B' but now the judges should as well perform a role of being facilitators. In colonial times, judges found completely different functions." "Today, we need to ensure that we look into the needs of our society, ensure social growth and social progress by allowing our marginalised groups to come to the mainstream," he said.

The proclamation meant that the constitutions were not like that of the colonial period charter which was more inclined to consolidate the power of colonial rulers than the welfare of the people, he added.

He also drew attention to the fact that the constitutional courts of India and Bangladesh continued to closely follow and share each others' decisions and verdicts on common issues such as fundamental rights, equality of rights, and doctrines on death penalty reference or public interest litigation following identical principles.

"[But] as we aggregate our similarities and identify our divergences, we must strike a delicate balance. We must neither gloss over details nor fixate on them," he said.

Earlier on the day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said an independent judiciary, strong parliament and administration can take a country towards development.

"After coming to power, we have made the judiciary totally independent by separating it from the administration in fulfilling the belief of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman," she said.

She also said the government has separated the judiciary from the administration by allocating a separate budget.

On 23 February, Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin opened the two-day conference.