TIB blasts one-day deadline for giving opinions on Enforced Disappearance Act

The Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on Wednesday strongly criticised the authorities for giving stakeholders only one day to submit their feedback on the draft law on enforced disappearances, rejecting the move as a “mockery” of public opinion.

In a press release, TIB also raised concerns that ruling party lawmakers, armed with absolute majority, might pass the draft bill hurriedly, without allowing adequate time for review and scrutiny by others, as has been done with many other laws under the 13th Parliament.

TIB cited the “Invest Bangladesh Act, 2026” as an example of this inappropriate trend, and dubbed the ongoing show of absolute majority at the parliament as an “abuse of power.”

In the process, the BNP lawmakers have violated the Rules of Procedure of Parliament, TIB alleged.

It called for extending the feedback submission deadline with regards to the “Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearance Act, 2026” from one day to two weeks. The Home Ministry uploaded the draft on its website on 27 July, and gave victims and other stakeholders until 28 July to submit opinions, TIB said.

TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said in a statement: “The draft law includes several positive provisions, such as recognising enforced disappearance as a distinct criminal and continuing offence; holding senior officials and those who issue orders accountable; and declaring state security or other similar grounds unacceptable as justification for enforced disappearance, among others. However, allowing only one day for stakeholders to submit their views on such an important national law demonstrates a lack of government goodwill in seeking the views of victims and relevant stakeholders. Moreover, the recent instances of violating the Rules of Procedure of Parliament in passing several important laws have raised concerns that a similar practice of abusing the power of an absolute majority is being imposed in the case of this draft law as well.”

Under the proposed draft, responsibility for investigating enforced disappearance cases has been assigned to the police instead of the National Human Rights Commission.

 Questioning whether the police can conduct impartial and independent investigations into such sensitive cases, Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, “There are specific allegations that members of the police and other law enforcement agencies were involved in many of the enforced disappearances that occurred in the past. The ordinance issued during the interim government assigned responsibility for investigating enforced disappearance cases to the National Human Rights Commission. How, then, could such a provision be included under a government that came to power with a strong public mandate, especially when many of its prominent leaders and activists, as well as ordinary citizens, have direct experience of enforced disappearance and killings by law enforcement agencies during the previous authoritarian regime? Are we then to assume that the political and bureaucratic establishment currently in power has learned nothing from the authoritarian era.”