THE INSERTION OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN A CONSTITUTION

PART III
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

44. (1) The right to move the High Court Division in accordance with clause (1) of article 102, for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part is guaranteed.

(2) Without prejudice to the powers of the High Court Division under article 102, Parliament may by law empower any other court, within the local limits of its jurisdiction, to exercise all or any of those powers.

The insertion of fundamental rights in a constitution becomes meaningless if it is not provided by the Constitution for easy and effective procedure for their enforcement. And this easy and effective enforcement should be available not only against the executive but also against the legislative. If the executive does anything in violation of fundamental rights, the citizens must have a remedy. Similarly if the legislature enacts any law which is inconsistent with any of the fundamental rights, there must be procedure to declare that law unconstitutional. The idea of protection of fundamental rights can be best understood from the American Declaration of Independence, 1776 where it is stated—

“That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new one.”

The Declaration, therefore, has laid the utmost emphasis on the enforcement of rights that if the peoples’ rights for the protection of which the government is formed, cannot be enforced then the government would be useless. The importance of remedies to enforce fundamental rights has also got recognition in article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 which states—

“Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunal for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.”

To this respect the Pakistan Supreme Court in Moudoodi V. Government held—

The basic principle underlying a declaration of Fundamental Rights in a Constitution is that it must be capable of being enforced not only against the executive but also against the legislature by judicial process.”

Constitutional Guarantees or Remedies

Though it is a claim of a written constitution embodying fundamental rights that effective constitutional remedies for the enforcement of fundamental rights should be provided for by the Constitution itself, practical experience teaches us that some of the written constitutions do not specifically provide for the remedies in the Constitution. The US and the French Constitutions are two of them. But most of the written constitutions provide for the right to constitutional remedies in case of violation of fundamental rights. This right to constitutional remedy has two dimensions- judicial review and judicial enforcement.’ Judicial review in relation to fundamental rights is provided for with a view to enforcing fundamental rights against the legislature. In other words, if the legislature passes any law which is inconsistent with the fundamental rights, the highest seat of the judiciary must have the jurisdiction to declare that law unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Bangladesh can exercise this jurisdiction under Articles 26 and 102 of the Constitution.  Judicial enforcement, on the other hand, is provided for with a view to enforcing fundamental rights against the executive. In other words, if any public authority violates any of the fundamental rights enumerated in the Constitution, the right to move the highest court of the land for enforcing that right must be specifically guaranteed in the Constitution and it should be guaranteed as of an independent fundamental right. This right is guaranteed in article 44 and the High court Division of the Supreme Court is empowered to enforce fundamental rights under Article 102 of the Bangladesh constitution.

As mentioned earlier, the US Constitution incorporating a Bill of Rights does not specifically provide for constitutional remedies for the enforcement of fundamental rights. In other words, no right has been created, as has been in the Constitution of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan etc., in the US Constitution in favor of citizens to move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of any of the Bill of Rights. The direct enforcement procedure of fundamental rights in USA is dealt with the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the US Supreme Court hears the fundamental rights cases only in its appellate jurisdiction.3 In France the position is also a narrower one. The French Constitution provides neither any right to constitutional remedies nor is any court in France empowered to declare a law which is inc1nsistent with fundamental rights unconstitutional.