Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal says there is no legal barrier for president-elect Mohammed Shahabuddin to hold the post of the head of state.
The CEC also described the debate over holding the president’s post by the former commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission as an unexpected one.
“It will be unexpected for such questions to be raised against the head of state,” Awal said at a media briefing in Dhaka on Wednesday, reports bdnews.com.
Shahabuddin, a former district judge and ACC commissioner, was elected president unopposed on Monday. A notice naming the Awami League candidate as the head of state has already been issued.
But a newspaper article raised questions about the legality of the move.
A person will not be eligible to hold an office of profit in government service after the end of their service as a commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission under the ACC law.
A newspaper published an article on the matter on Tuesday, where legal experts expressed mixed reactions to the election of Shahabuddin as president.
The constitution does not say anything specific about whether the post of the president is linked to financial gain. But the High Court declared that the presidential office is not an office of profit in a 1996 writ following a past dispute.
Shahabuddin Ahmed, the former chief justice of Bangladesh, was elected as the president of Bangladesh that year by the Awami League government.
A case statement that challenged the former president at the time claimed that one could not hold an office of profit after retiring as chief justice.
But the court declared that the presidential post is not one of profit, clearing the way for Shahabuddin to become the president-elect.
On Wednesday, CEC Awal said Mohammed Shahabuddin is ‘not ineligible’ to be a president, referring to articles of the Bangladesh Constitution and the 1996 verdict in the case.
“It is a constitutional post.”