The Rise of Constitutional Torts in South Asia

On 13 March 2019, an event under the law in practice seminar series was held at the BILIA Auditorium, Dhaka. The seminar titled, "The Rise of Constitutional Torts in South Asia" was organized by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST).
Rehan Abeyratne, Assistant Professor of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong, discussed on the topic "Ordinary Wrongs as Constitutional Rights: The Public Law Model of Torts in South Asia". He identified two ways for remedying the ordinary wrongs as constitutional rights in South Asia.
Professor Ridwanul Hoque, commenting on Mr. Rehan's presentation delineated the jurisprudential and institutional scopes of the work. He addressed three questions from the presentation i.e. whether public law is expanding, are we being strengthened in the protection of the fundamental rights and are we strengthening some courts over others or not.
He mentioned about the two types of torts existing in our judiciary. One being the constitutional tort and another is purely private wrongs, dressed as a public law tort. He also noted the growing trend of several compensation cases from the year 2018.
Mr. Taqbir Huda discussed on the violation of fundamental rights and constitutional torts in Bangladesh. He emphasized that Article 102 of the Bangladesh Constitution gives scope for claiming remedy from the High Court Division through writ petitions. The granting necessary relief for vindication of fundamental rights is an obligation of the HCD. Such relief includes public tort compensation as well. He was successful in showing that civil law compensation and constitutional tort compensation are mutually exclusive.
Professor Hoque agreed to the findings of Taqbir Huda. He further delved into the problem with institutional competence and jurisprudential problem of constitutional tort. He finds that the court intends to hold private bodies under constitutional tort and the legal basis of compensatory jurisprudence in Bangladesh is still not coherent enough.
Dr. Naim Ahmed remarked that the shelter of PIL is sought in most of the cases when there is no other scope for relief remaining. However, while entertaining the case, the judges oftentimes forget the principles of judicial restraint, constitutionalismand separation of power, he added. He also thinks that our civil courts have turned so weak that our judges have lost their confidence. On the debatable trend of the compensation, he explained that, "We are not blaming anyone rather trying to understand the cause behind it."
There was a Q&A session afterwards. As to a question addressed to Rehan on the aftermath of the merger between ordinary tort and constitutional tort, he replied that the solution lies in following precedents and exercising the restraints on judicial adventures.
The chair of the event, Justice Nizamul Haque Nasim opined that, "The norm of interim compensation awarding should be stopped. Relief should be given only at the end of the hearing of the trial."
The event concluded thereafter with the appreciation of everyone's collective efforts.

Event covered by Raihan Rahman Rafid, and Asadullahil Galib