Country to get new president before 24 April: Law minister
The country is going to have a new president before 24 April as the government has no plan to amend the constitution to retain President Abdul Hamid for a third term in a row, Law Minister Anisul Huq said.
"The constitution does not have any scope to have a president for three terms in a row, and the government has no intention of amending it to retain Abdul Hamid," Anisul Huq said while replying to questions from journalists after inaugurating a four-day training workshop for lower court judges at the Bangladesh Judicial Administration Training Institute in the capital on Wednesday.
The minister added that the presidential election will be held at the stipulated time.
The training workshop was organised in collaboration with the UK and will discuss various issues of the judiciary such as case backlog, case management, and quick case settlement methods.
The law minister said since the president has served two terms, according to the constitution he cannot stay longer. Therefore, a new president will be searched.
Regarding the bail of BNP leaders, the minister said, "Not only the law ministry, but no other ministries are interfering in the work of the court. If the court thinks that bail can be granted, the court grants bail. If it thinks bail could not be granted, then the court disapproved it."
The minister also said, "It often happens that the lower court did not grant bail, but the higher court granted it and vice versa. This is nothing new in Bangladesh."
He said those who are complaining about it "may not have seen the Jatiya Party-BNP tenure, or even if they had seen it, they do not want to talk about those experiences now".
Law Secretary Golam Sarwar chaired the inaugural session of the workshop while Justice Maura McGowan, a Judge of the UK High Court, and Khatun Sapnara, a Circuit Judge of the UK, spoke at the event.