Article 93 of the Constitution of Bangladesh grants the President of Bangladesh the power to issue ordinances in case of emergency when the national parliament is dissolved or not in session.

However, any ordinance issued must be presented in the first session of the parliament and must be passed by the parliament within 30 days to become law; otherwise, the ordinance will cease to be effective.

With this in mind, on the first day of the first session of the 13th National Parliament, a special committee was formed to determine the fate of 133 ordinances made during the tenure of the interim government. A glaring issue here is the lack of representation from parties other than BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami in the 14-member committee. The committee includes 11 members from BNP and 3 from Jamaat. However, outside of these two parties, there were the NCP, the Gono Odhikar Parishad, and the Bangladesh Jatiya Party. There were also seven independent members. Including members from among these independent members would have enriched the committee and given it a multi-party character.

Out of 133 ordinances, the committee accepted 98 without change. But what was the rationale behind annulling the ordinances that ensured the independence of the judiciary, such as the Supreme Court Judges Appointment Ordinance 2025 and the Supreme Court Secretariat (Amendment) Ordinance 2026? Is it because the BNP government wishes to maintain the government’s exclusive power over the appointment of Supreme Court judges, as was the practice until now? They seem keen to follow the previous government’s practice of blatant interference by the executive branch in the appointments and postings of the lower judiciary.