Rehan Abeyratne & Po Jen Yap on Constitutional Dismemberments, Basic Structure Doctrine, and Pragmatic Justifications in Context (Int'l J Const L)

"Constitutional dismemberments, basic structure doctrine, and pragmatic justifications in context: A rejoinder"

Rehan Abeyratne & Po Jen Yap
International Journal of Constitutional Law, 

Published on 6 October 2022

Introduction: Our article “Judicial Self-Dealing and Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in South Asia” focused on the Bangladesh Supreme Court’s Appellate Division (AD) judgment in Bangladesh v. Asaduzzaman Siddiqui, which struck down the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh (1972). The Sixteenth Amendment restored an original constitutional provision but was nonetheless held unconstitutional for violating the Constitution’s basic structure. We argued that Siddiqui, though facially problematic, could be defended on both theoretical and pragmatic grounds. First, we argued that the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution could be characterized as a “constitutional dismemberment” that created a new constitutional settlement from which the Sixteenth Amendment had unconstitutionally deviated. Second, we noted that the Sixteenth Amendment raised the specter of undue political interference in judicial removals by transferring the removal power from a judge-led Supreme Judicial Council to Parliament. Given Bangladesh’s checkered history of partisan executive interference with the judiciary, we also contended that the AD was justified in striking down the amendment on pragmatic grounds...