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Summary: General overview of Bangladesh's national legal provisions on children's rights, including guidance on how to conduct further research.
National laws on children's rights Status of the CRC in national law Constitution: Part II of the Constitution of Bangladesh provides a substantial list of non-justiciable rights, while Part III contains those rights that can be asserted in the courts. Though there are many rights provisions that apply regardless of age, there are only two that make specific reference to the rights of children: Non-justiciable: Justiciable: Legislation: Bangladesh does not have a comprehensive or consolidated act implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child; rather, laws relating to children's rights are found throughout a variety of sources. Relevant legislation includes, but is by no means limited to: Legal Research Case Law Case Law Research Compliance with the CRC In depth analysis Another particular area of concern for the Committee was that the definition of what constitutes a child varied according to civil law, the CRC and Sharia law, particularly with regards to marriage. The Committee encouraged Bangladesh to enact legislation that consistently identifies children as persons under 18 within all spheres of the law. Furthermore, the Committee highlighted the absence of legislation establishing a legal and administrative framework for dealing with refugee children and their families. The Committee noted that the absence of such a framework is preventing vulnerable children from accessing vital services such as education and health care services. Current legal reform projects
Ratiied treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, do not take precedence over national law where there is clear domestic legislation on an issue. International law does, however, have persuasive value, and the CRC has been cited in Bangladeshi courts.
The Parliament of Bangladesh maintains an official website offering legal information (www.parliament.gov.bd/), and the website of the Bangladeshi government also contains certain legal and government information (http://www.bangladesh.gov.bd/). The Commonwealth Legal Information Institute publishes a selection of Bangladeshi statutes in English (http://www.commonlii.org/bd/legis/num_act/) and the Constitution (http://www.commonlii.org/bd/legis/const/2004/index.html). In addition, the GlobaLex project at New York University has published a guide to legal research in Bangladesh (http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/Bangladesh1.htm), and both the U.S. Law Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/bangladesh.php) and the World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/catalog/210.html) provide a selection of links to legal and government resources.
CRC Jurisprudence
In 2006, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh decided on a case involving the jursidiction of juvenile and adult criminal courts in State v. Mondal. In 2009, the High Court issued a ruling on the appropriate placement of child victims of violence in State v. Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and ors.
The case law of the appellate courts is available through the website of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (http://www.supremecourt.gov.bd/scweb/judgments.php?div_id=1).
The Committee on the Rights of the Child has welcomed a number of reforms to Bangladeshi law including in relation to birth registration and citizenship. However, in 2009, the Committee noted that some aspects of domestic legislation continued to be in conflict with the principles and provisions of the Convention. The Committee particularly noted the absence of a comprehensive law to incorporate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and expressed concern that the Children's Act 1974 had not been revised in line with the Convention.
Juvenile justice is perhaps the area of Bangladeshi law that caused greatest consternation in the 2009 Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Committee expressed its utmost concern that children aged 16 and 17 can be sentenced to death or to imprisonment for life. The low minimum age of criminal responsibility (9 years) was also a matter of serious concern, as was the fact that children continued to be detained in adult jails, and that ill-treatment of children in detention was reported to be common. The Committee recommended that the State legislate to prohibit the death penalty for children, to prevent life sentences being applied to such persons, and to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 12 years.
At the time of Bangladesh's 2009 report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a draft law on establishing a Children's Commissioner (Ombudsperson) had been drafted.