The Supreme Court Judges Appointment Ordinance, 2025, promulgated by the interim government

on January 21, 2025, was a substantive institutional reform. It created a seven-member

Judicial Appointment Council chaired by the Chief Justice, with membership drawn from both

divisions of the Supreme Court, a retired appellate judge, the Attorney General, and an

independent legal academic. The design directly addressed the prior system's core defect:

unchecked executive control over who sits on the bench.

When the Jatiya Sangsad passed the 'Supreme Court Judge Appointment (Repeal) Bill, 2026' on

April 9, 2026, it stripped that framework from the statute book. The savings clause preserves

the 25 appointments already made under the Council, but it does not preserve the institution

itself. The government's stated rationale was that a constitutional reform committee needed

time to study the provisions. As of May 2026, no timetable for a successor framework has been

announced, and no draft bill has been circulated.

The practical consequence is that the President, acting on cabinet advice, has reverted to

discretionary appointment authority for future Supreme Court vacancies. For a bench running

103 High Court judges when the system clearly needs more, the absence of a transparent

appointment process is not an abstract governance concern. It is a bottleneck with measurable

consequences for backlog reduction.

The Backlog: Scale, Composition, and Trajectory

The 47.42 lakh pending cases as of December 31, 2025 represent more than a large number.

They represent 4.742 million disputes, contracts, property rights, and liberty questions

unresolved. The High Court Division alone held 659,256 pending matters at year-end 2025.

Lower courts held 40.42 lakh.

The trajectory is the more alarming indicator. Between July 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025

the backlog grew by approximately 3 lakh cases net, despite ongoing disposal efforts. New

filings are consistently outpacing completions. The Judiciary Reform Commission's

recommendation to raise the lower-court cadre from approximately 2,000 to 6,000 judges

provides a sense of the structural gap: the system is operating at roughly one-third of the

capacity needed to stop accumulation, let alone reduce it.

The Judge-Shortage Arithmetic

Bangladesh's approximately 2,295 judicial officers serve a population of 170 million, a

ratio of roughly one judge per 95,000 citizens. India, itself the subject of sustained

criticism for judicial delays, operates at one judge per 69,000. Sri Lanka manages one per

55,000. The gap between Bangladesh and India alone corresponds to approximately 800 additional

judges that would be needed just to reach the India benchmark, with no guarantee that the

India benchmark is adequate.

Chief Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury, who took office on December 28, 2025, has publicly

identified judge shortage as the primary structural constraint on case disposal. His

predecessor, Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, had published a Roadmap for justice sector

reforms in September 2024 that included a transfer and posting policy for subordinate

judiciary judges. Implementation progress on that Roadmap, under a new administration, is

uneven.

What the WJP Numbers Mean

The WJP Rule of Law Index 2024 rank of 127 out of 142 countries reflects the composite of

eight subcategories. Bangladesh's weakest score is Fundamental Rights at 0.30. Criminal

Justice, at 0.31, is nearly as weak. Civil Justice scores 0.36. These are not merely

international rankings; they are measures of what citizens experience when they engage the

legal system. A civil litigant in Bangladesh waits an average of 5 to 6 years for case

resolution. Land disputes average 8 to 10 years. The gap between the criminal justice score

(0.31) and Order and Security (0.55) suggests that the system's problems are concentrated in

adjudication and enforcement rather than in raw crime rates.

Regional context: Nepal (0.52), Sri Lanka, and India all score materially above Bangladesh.

Without structural reforms to judicial capacity and appointment transparency, the score is

unlikely to improve.

What a Successor Framework Must Accomplish

The BNP government has three independent obligations that a successor judicial appointment

framework must satisfy to be taken seriously. First, it must be constitutionally grounded

rather than statutory-only, because an ordinance-level framework can again be repealed by

simple majority. Second, it must insulate the appointment process from cabinet discretion

while preserving presidential nomination as the constitutional form. Third, it must include

a timeline: the 7 Appellate Division vacancies (against a working strength of 6) and any

High Court vacancies cannot be filled transparently until a framework exists.

The repeal is not irreversible. Governance institutions are rebuilt through consistent

legislation and consistent practice. What makes the April 2026 repeal damaging is not that

the 2025 ordinance was perfect, but that it was scrapped without a replacement rather than

amended toward improvement. The difference matters: amendment signals commitment to the

principle of insulated appointment; outright repeal signals that executive appointment

discretion is the preferred default.