Jamaat eyes registration, electoral symbol restoration after court clears decade-old ban

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Assistant Secretary General AHM Hamidur Rahman Azad has said the party will regain its registration and its electoral symbol - the “weighing scales” - following the Appellate Division’s ruling.

He said the Election Commission (EC) responded “positively” after Jamaat submitted a copy of the short verdict during a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin, reports bdnews24.com.

Hamidur led a six-member delegation to the meeting at the Nirbachan Bhaban, or Election Building, in Dhaka’s Agargaon.

The team submitted the short verdict in their bid to have the party’s registration reinstated and the weighing scale symbol restored.

The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division delivered the ruling on Sunday, overturning a verdict issued by the High Court on Aug 1, 2013--during the tenure of the Awami League government—which had declared Jamaat’s registration as a political party illegal, citing contradictions between its charter and the Constitution.

That High Court decision had effectively removed Jamaat from the electoral process, barring it from participating in any general or local elections.

The Appellate Division’s decision comes more than a decade later, clearing the path for the party to return to the political field under its old identity.

“The court has now cancelled that unjust verdict,” Hamidur said after the meeting. “In 2008, I contested the ninth parliamentary election with the weighing scale symbol and was elected an MP. That same symbol was on the EC’s reserved list.”

He argued that the new court ruling mandates a return to the pre-2013 state.

“The EC now has no reason and no scope to deny this. They haven’t objected, and legally, they can’t. How could they go against a Supreme Court order?”

Hamidur maintained that until the 2013 ruling, the party and symbol remained valid in the EC’s official lists.

“Restoring the previous situation means everything returns automatically—the registration, the weighing scale symbol—it all becomes part of the official record again,” he said.

“The rest is procedural. The commission is positive.”The weighing scale symbol was removed from the EC’s list in 2017, following a 2016 administrative decision by the Supreme Court’s full court meeting, which designated it as a symbol of justice for use in the court’s official monogram.

After receiving the decision, the EC proposed removing the symbol under Rule 9(1) of the Representation of the People Order 2008.

With endorsement from the law miistry, the change was made official through a gazette notification on Mar 8, 2017.

Asked about this, Hamidur said the full court meeting was not a legal judgment and carries no weight in this matter.

“That was an administrative step, not a court verdict,” he said. “A full court meeting is not a judicial forum. We will get the weighing scale back. The court has spoken. The commission is on the same page.”