‘Article 70 is mandatory provision for the HC’

The Article 70 of the constitution is a mandatory provision for the High Court, the court said today.

The court said this while quoting an observation of the Appellate Division during hearing a writ petition that challenged the legality of Article 70 regarding the cancellation of membership of a lawmaker for voting against his or her political party.

According to the Article 70, a lawmaker has to vacate his or her seat if he or she votes in parliament against the party which nominated him or her.

“The object of this article is no doubt discernible that it is to ensure stability and continuity of government and also to ensure discipline among the members of the political parties so that corruption and instability due to political horse trading can be removed from national politics.

“By reason of article 70 of our constitution and its impact on members of Parliament leads to the irresistible conclusion that this new mechanism cannot be expected to function independently and neutrally if a judge attracts displeasure from the political party in power, he may be subjected to removal by parliament,” said the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in its verdict on the constitution’s 16th amendment case.

The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JBM Hassan today adjourned the hearing till October 8 as writ petitioner Advocate Eunus Ali Akond in a supplementary petition has ‘misquoted’ the apex court observation about Article 70.

Eunus Ali Akond told The Daily Star that he submitted the supplementary petition to the HC containing some of the SC observations which were made in the judgment in the constitution’s 16th amendment case, but there were some “typing mistakes” in the supplementary petition.

He said he will correct the supplementary petition during next hearing of the writ petition.

Deputy Attorney General Motaher Hossain Sazu opposed the writ petition saying that Eunus Ali has filed the writ petition for his personal interest as he said in the writ petition that he is candidate for the post of president of the republic.

The petition should be rejected, he argued.       

Advocate Eunus Ali submitted the writ petition with the HC on April 18 challenging the legality of Article 70 of the constitution saying that the article is against the democracy and Article 7, 19, 26, 27, 44, 31 and 119 of the constitution.

Under the democracy, the republic will run by the elected representatives, he said in the petition, adding that if a parliament lawmaker’s membership is cancelled for voting against his or her political party, he can’t independently vote for the public interest.