Strong steps already taken for institutional reforms at judiciary, says chief justice

Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed assured on Sunday that the judiciary will stand beside people, stressing that strong steps have already been taken for institutional reforms at this crucial juncture.

“Everyone will find a people-oriented and people-centric judiciary by your side in welfare and work,” he said while inaugurating the Citizen's Conference 2024 titled ‘People-centric Reform for Good Governance: Aspirations of Disadvantaged Communities’ in the capital.

In recent years, the Chief Justice said that a sense of justice and the values associated with it have been eroded.

“Dishonesty instead of honesty, deprivation instead of rights, oppression instead of justice, torture instead of shelter have been made normal matters (in the past years). But we did not want such a society and state,” he said.

The Chief Justice stressed the need for starting a new journey of the judiciary and re-establishing the destroyed values standing on this pile of rubbles of this destruction.

“At this critical juncture of the country, the judiciary is also not free from its broken state. However, at this stage, I want to assure you in a strong voice without any hesitation that a new journey has already started with some strong steps for institutional reforms to overcome this situation,” he added.

The Chief Justice went on to say, “This historic moment of victory for the student-people movement has presented us with a golden opportunity to stand by the oppressed and oppressed. We must always be careful to make full use of this opportunity.”

The two-day conference has been organised by Citizen's Platform for SDGs Bangladesh, with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Bangladesh and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation at BICC in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.

The opening session was chaired by Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Convenor of the Citizen’s Platform and distinguished fellow at CPD, with speakers including Lamiya Morshed, Principal Coordinator for SDG Affairs at the Chief Adviser’s Office, Corinne Henchoz Pignani, Chargé d'Affaires at the Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh, and Stefan Liller, Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh.