Article 11 is included in Part II of the Constitution, which sets out the fundamental principles of state policy. As such, it is not justiciable—meaning it cannot be enforced through the courts. However, Article 59 is binding upon the government. In other words, under the prevailing constitutional provisions, it is mandatory that governance at the district level be conducted by elected district councils, at the upazila level by elected upazila parishads, and at the union level by elected union parishads. Similarly, city corporations and municipalities must be governed by elected bodies.

It is worth recalling that following the abolition of upazila parishads in 1991, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, led by Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, ruled in the case of Kudrat-e-Elahi Panir vs Bangladesh [44 DLR (AD) (1992)] that local government is an essential component of our democratic system. The Court emphasised that local affairs must be managed through locally elected representatives and opposed the administration of such institutions by government officials or other unelected individuals. The Court explicitly observed that if government officials or their affiliates are appointed to run local government institutions, “it would not be reasonable to retain them as local government institutions,” since the fundamental basis of democracy is popular representation.