Why suspension of fundamental rights not illegal

---

The High Court (HC) Monday declined to issue a stay order on the operation of two Emergency Proclamation Orders 2007 relating to the powers vested in the President, reports UNB.
But the HC, upon a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) writ petition, issued twin rules asking the government to explain why suspension of fundamental rights guaranteed during the emergency should not be declared ultra vires of the Constitution.
It also asked the government to show cause as to why the impugned gazette notification that had proclaimed state of emergency invoking the power vested in the President under article 141C should not be declared inconsistent with the basic features and fundamental structure of the Constitution.
The rules have been made returnable in four weeks.
After a brief hearing, a division bench comprising Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui issued the twin rules upon a PIL writ petition filed by Asafuddowllah, a retired top bureaucrat, Nurul Kabir, editor of the New Age, Amir Kahsru, a senior journalist, and Rehnuma Ahmed, an anthropologist. .
Secretaries to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs and Office of the President have been made respondents to the writ petition.
The PIL petitioners also sought a court declaration under Article 7(2) (supremacy of the Constitution) read with Article 26(2) (laws inconsistent with fundamental rights to be void).
Article 7(2) says, the Constitution is, as the solemn expression of the will of the people, the supreme law of the Republic, and if any other law is inconsistent with the Constitution that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.
And according to the Article 26(2), the state shall not make any law inconsistent with any provision relating to fundamental rights and any law so made shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void.
Emerging from the court, Barrister Moyeen Firozee, who appeared for the PIL petitioners, quoted the HC bench as saying that the case would be heard in a larger bench as it involves significant interpretation of the Constitution.