Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain has retired after serving as lawyer and judge in the Supreme Court for 36 years. He will be remembered for some ‘momentous’ judgments in the history of Bangladesh, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said. Justice Hossain delivered several landmark judgments including those on the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, murder of four national leaders inside Dhaka jail, and the 5th and 13th amendments to the Constitution. He was given a warm farewell on Thursday, the last working day before the end of his service tenure on Friday. Despite the BNP’s ongoing blockade, the function was well attended by legal luminaries. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Abdul Baset Majumder spoke on the occasion. Justice Hossain gave the valedictory speech. The outgoing top judge said that as per Bangladesh’s Constitution, the executive, legislature and judiciary had an equal role. “There should be checks and balances among these three organs. None of them should cross its limit.” A “cordial relation” between these organs was essential for the rule of law and smooth functioning of the government, he said. Born on Jan 17, 1948, Justice Muzammel Hossain completed his secondary studies from the Kishoreganj High School in 1962 and higher secondary from Guru Dayal College in 1964. After completing his LLB from Dhaka University, he did his Master’s in Journalism in 1971. The same year he was enlisted as a lawyer in a lower court. After joining the High Court as a lawyer in 1978, he did his LLM from UK’s Sheffield University. He became a barrister from Lincolns Inn in 1980. He also taught at Nigeria’s Miadiguri University and worked as a professor in Dhaka’s City Law College and Dhanmondi Law College. He became a High Court judge on April 27, 1998 and later joined the Appellate Division on July 16, 2009. He was made chief justice on May 18, 2011. At the farewell function, the attorney general recalled that Justice Hossain had actively taken part in democratic movements from 1966-69. During the Liberation War, Pakistani forces had set ablaze his room in the erstwhile Iqbal Hall. He was the judge in the Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Abdul Quader Molla and Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s war crime cases in the Appellate Division. Stating that those cases would be regarded as ‘historic’, Attorney General Alam said, “You (Justice Hossain) have always strived to uphold the rule of the law, freedom and autonomy of the judiciary and constitutional propriety. You will be ever remembered for your landmark judgments.” His role as a judge would remain indelible in the history of Bangladesh’s judiciary, the attorney general added. “In future, whenever needed while dealing with a case, we will refer to your judgments and verdicts. We will always feel your presence amongst us,” he said. The attorney general continued, “A lawyer survives through his work and it is also through this work that he leaves his mark in history.”
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:17:49 +0000
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