Remembering Dr Zahir, a revered jurist and constitutional expert

Dr Muhammad Zahir, the once well-revered jurist whose name has almost sunk into obscurity now, breathed his last on this day in 2013 in a hospital in Bangkok.

It's inconceivable how 10 long years have gone by since his death. He is still in my imagination vividly, as if he were here yesterday, barking out instructions to his juniors in his characteristically thunderous voice.

My acquaintance with Dr Zahir began in 2003 after I had come back from England and joined his chambers as an associate, and it lasted until his death. I was struck by the intensity and vivacity of his character. Whatever he did, he seemed to do it with every fibre of his being. He was quite sprightly for his age, and dressed with panache. He frequently out-walked us in the long verandas of the High Court.

An avid tennis player, he used to quip, "Two courts attract me most: the High Court and the tennis court." He liked music and poetry, played the piano and guitar, sang English and Urdu songs from bygone days, and took pride in the fact that he had played with the legendary Indian playback singer Mohammad Rafi.

Always bright and breezy, he infused humour into a rather humdrum legal profession. His presence would immediately lighten up the rather sullen mood of a crowded courtroom, and would invariably elicit smiles from all, including the judges. I remember one incident when eminent jurist TH Khan (now deceased) was presenting vociferous legal arguments in court. After a long and noisy oration, he sat down triumphantly. Dr Zahir, the opponent's lawyer, stood up and, alluding to a quote from Hamlet, began, "My Lords, Mr Khan was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The jest was caught on right away and the courtroom roared with laughter.

Dr Zahir was a stickler for punctuality. His unswerving devotion to work was legendary. He often preached Benjamin Franklin's age-old sermon, to "never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today." Despite having quite a few juniors at his disposal, he was the one who pulled the labouring oar in his chambers. Owing to his sturdy physique and soaring voice, with a flair for drollery, he kept his clientele captivated.

The author of an erudite book on company and securities laws, his contribution to company law was pithily incisive. He and Barrister Rafiqul Huq, now deceased, were the authors of the Company Rules now in force. Corporate legal practice was Dr Zahir's stock-in-trade, though he is probably better remembered as a constitutional expert. In times of political crises, he frequently appeared on TV and uttered prescient warnings. Democracy and libertarianism ranked high in his thoughts. Being politically neutral, he was not trusted by any regime, and had never been appointed as the attorney general – a fact that he sometimes lamented.

He taught us many extraordinary lessons, and alerted us about the pernicious effects of cognitive biases (availability bias, confirmation bias, etc). He taught us about logical fallacies when arguing a case, and warned us about the straw man fallacy (the kind that was used by Senator Richard Nixon in his famous Checkers speech). He taught us to be aware of lexical and syntactic errors of language while drafting petitions. These lessons have guided us all throughout our lives, and we shall remain indebted to him forever.

Dr Zahir left behind his wife, a son, and a brother when he died. His wife, our beloved aunt, pined away after her husband's death, and eventually died in 2021. His former juniors are still carrying the torch of his legacy under the nomenclature "Dr M Zahir & Associates." We took up the mantle indeed, as he had always wanted us to. May the Almighty give him eternal peace.

M Shafiqur Rahman is a barrister-at-law at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.