Australian Journal of Asian Law, 2023, Vol 24 No 1, Article 09: 117-126

The Death Penalty in Bangladesh: A Review

Muhammad Mahbubur Rahman ∗ and Psymhe Wadud ♣

The death penalty regime in Bangladesh, unlike that of many other countries retaining the death penalty, has been little researched.
Consequently, it has historically been taken for granted in Bangladesh that it is a legitimate form of punishment and the human
rights aspects of the death penalty have attracted little public debate or discussion there. Several recent empirical studies have,
however, come up with disturbing findings that cast doubt on its legitimacy. Based on this emerging evidence, this article argues
that, by and large, death sentencing in Bangladesh has been marred by arbitrariness and procedural flaws. However, it concludes
that well-informed debates and discussions could eventually challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that strengthen the currently
dominant retentionist position.

Bangladesh is an active death penalty state where the application and impact of this extreme
punishment is under-researched and under-studied (Khondaker et al, 2011). Consequently, the death
penalty has historically been taken for granted there as a legitimate form of punishment and the human
rights aspects of this penalty have attracted little public debate or discussion. However, recent empirical
studies have produced disturbing findings that cast doubt on its legitimacy in Bangladesh. This paper
focuses on three of these – Rahman (2020), Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs
(BILIA) (2019), and Rahman (2017). Rahman (2020), written by one the authors of this article, is an
empirical study conducted by the Department of Law of the University of Dhaka that analyses the socio-
economic characteristics of death sentence prisoners in Bangladesh and tries to understand their
experiences of, and perspectives on, the criminal justice system. BILIA (2019) explores the attitudes and
opinions of former trial court judges towards the administration of criminal justice in general and the
death penalty in particular. Rahman (2017), again written by one of the authors, critically examines
sentencing policies in Bangladesh and undertakes an examination and comparison of all murder cases
reported in major law reports from 1972 to 2010 in which the trial court awarded the death penalty and
the High Court Division (HCD) either confirmed it or reduced the sentence to life imprisonment.
The present article critically reviews the key findings of these three studies. Focusing on the
decisions and observations made by the higher judiciary, this article aims to locate the studies within
broader debates concerning the retention of death penalty under ‘ordinary laws’. For the purposes of this
article, this term excludes anti-espionage laws, international crimes laws, and laws relating to defence
forces and paramilitary forces. 1
The article has three parts. The first paints the contours of the death penalty regime in Bangladesh
in broad strokes. It gives a general overview of the death-eligible offences, and the international human
rights obligations of Bangladesh, and briefly critiques the country’s official position on death penalty.
The second part shows how arbitrariness, lack of procedural safeguards, and socio-economic biases
continue to undergird the administration of death penalty in Bangladesh. This part also highlights the
contemporary legal and policy reliance on death penalty as a punishment and its socio-economic impacts.
The article concludes by arguing that the empirical evidence has the potential to generate well-informed

∗
Professor, Department of Law, University of Dhaka.
♣
Lecturer, Department of Law, University of Dhaka.
1 For the death penalty offences under these laws, see: the Official Secrets Act of 1923; the Enemy Agents Ordinance of 1943; the
International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973; the Army Act of 1952; the Air Force Act of 1953; the Navy Ordinance of 1961; the
Border Guard Bangladesh Act of 2010; and the Bangladesh Coast Guard Act of 2016.

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Australian Journal of Asian Law Vol 24 No 1

public debates and discussions on the human rights aspects of the administration of death penalty so as
to eventually contest the assumptions that support retention of the death penalty in Bangladesh.

The Death Penalty in Bangladesh: An Overview

The legislative history of the current death penalty regime in Bangladesh has its origin in the Penal
Code of 1860, a colonial law of British India. 2 This Code, in its original form, contained eight death
penalty offences, all of which dealt with offences against the state or offences relating to homicide
(Rahman, 2017: 192), and it has been amended on several occasions to add more death penalty offences.
Moreover, many other penal laws with death penalty clauses have been introduced, not all of which fall
within the two broad categories of death penalty offences in the original Penal Code. There are now as
many as 33 death eligible offences under ordinary laws and 25 of these are offences that do not involve
homicide. 3 Interestingly, the Constitution of Bangladesh also contains ‘an explicit death penalty saving
clause and a prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment’ (Novak, 2016: 41).
Rahman (2020) has documented the number of executions as well as a trend over time of the reliance
of the death penalty in penal policy. This study finds that, ironically, only ‘nine out of these 33 death
penalty offences were introduced during colonial British rule; one was included [when Bangladesh was
part of Pakistan] [1947-71]. The other 23 [were] introduced after Bangladesh became independent [1971-
2020]’ (Rahman, 2020: 22). Moreover, 14 of these 23 death penalty offences were introduced in the
current century (Rahman, 2020: 22). Based on this trend, the study concludes that ‘contemporary
lawmakers are increasingly relying on the death penalty in penal policy’ (Rahman, 2020: 22). In his
earlier study, Rahman (2017 found that many of these death penalty provisions were introduced ‘almost
as a routine response to law-and-order problems’ (Rahman, 2017: 192) and ultimately proved ‘to be
nothing more than hysterical responses to real problems’ (Rahman, 2017: 225). On the number of
executions, Rahman finds that ‘executions have increased significantly since the start of this century’.
There were 11 executions during the period from 1991 to 2000. This climbed to 57 between 2001-2010
and then decreased to 30 from 2011- to 2019 (Rahman, 2020: 25).
Although Bangladesh has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966
(ICCPR), it is neither a party to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aimed at the restriction
and ultimate abolition of the death penalty nor is it ‘in the process of signing and ratifying it’ (Islam,
2006: 171). Moreover, Bangladesh has always voted against General Assembly Resolutions on the
abolition of the death penalty. In the latest Universal Periodic Review session, in 2018, Bangladesh did
not support the recommendations to abolish the death penalty, ratify the Second Optional Protocol to
the ICCPR, establish a moratorium on execution, or reduce the number of crimes to which the death
penalty applies. 4 Instead, the official position of Bangladesh is that ‘[d]eath penalty remains a valid form
of punishment for the most heinous crimes’. 5 Given that the death penalty can be imposed for 25 offences
under ordinary laws that do not have fatal consequences, this official claim is hardly defensible. The
International Federation for Human Rights has rightly pointed out that ‘[t]he shocking breadth of crimes
that attract the death penalty under Bangladeshi law breaches the ICCPR due to the economic and non-
lethal nature of several of the crimes’ (FIDH, 2010: 12).
On the question of retention or abolition of the death penalty, there have been several notable
developments in recent years. Section 33(1) of the Children Act of 2013 categorically prohibited the
imposition of death penalty on children. In 2014, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in BLAST and others

2 The death penalty as a form of punishment was also prevalent in the pre-colonial era (Johnson and Zimring, 2009: 438).
However, its application dramatically increased under colonisation (Fisch, 1983).
3 For a list of these offences, see Rahman (2020: 20-22).
4 Visit for more details, <https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/211/03/PDF/G1821103.pdf?OpenElement>.
5 <https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-04/a_hrc_wg.6_30_bgd_1_e.pdf>.

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vs Bangladesh and others 6 declared mandatory death sentences unconstitutional 7 but also observed that
the death penalty as a form of punishment is indispensable for Bangladesh:
“Our social conditions, social and cultural values are completely different from those of western countries. Our
criminal law and jurisprudence have developed highlighting the social conditions and cultural values. The
European Union has abolished death penalty in the context of their social conditions and values, but we cannot
totally abolish a sentence of death in our country because the killing of women for dowry, abduction of women
for prostitution, the abduction of children for trafficking are so rampant which are totally foreign to those
developed countries.” 8 (per Surendra Kumar Sinha J)

This retentionist claim echoes a widespread populist assumption that abolition of the death penalty is a
policy adopted only by European, Western or developed countries. This is factually not defensible since
many non-Western, non-European and under-developed countries are rapidly moving towards abolition
of the death penalty, and more than two-thirds of the countries in the world have already abolished it in
law or practice (Dudai, 2023). This judgment also relies on the socio-cultural contexts of Bangladesh as
a retentionist justification but the BILIA study questions this approach:
When the socio-economic or cultural context of Bangladesh is relied on as a justification for retaining the death
penalty, it is necessary to consider the positions taken by neighbouring countries, with almost identical socio-
economic or cultural contexts. Nepal and Bhutan abolished the death penalty in 1997 and 2004 respectively.
Sri Lanka, Maldives and Myanmar are abolitionist de facto. The last known executions occurred in these
countries in 1976, 1954 and 1988 respectively. India, though retentionist, has only executed three individuals
in the last 10 years (2007-2017). In South Asia, Bangladesh and Pakistan are the only two countries which
persistently impose and carry out death sentences. This regional survey calls into question the claim that socio-
economic or cultural contexts are a barrier to the abolition of the death penalty. The question becomes more
pressing when we learn that Bangladesh has the second lowest intentional homicide rate among south Asian
countries but has the second highest number of death row prisoners waiting to be executed (BILIA, 2019: 83).

Emerging Evidence on the Administration of the Death Penalty

It is often claimed that the abolition of the death penalty is increasingly ‘becoming the litmus test for the
respect for human rights’ (Hood and Hoyle, 2016: 48). Nonetheless, whether the death penalty is ipso
facto a breach of human rights is still a contentious issue (Fredman, 2018: 154). The developing
jurisprudence of human rights demands that, in order to be compliant with human rights standards,
this extreme punishment must:

be administered impartially, equitably, under legal procedures that protect the rights of the accused and the
convicted from unfair trial and choice of penalty, and in a way that not only avoids mistaken Judgment but also
discrimination and arbitrariness in its infliction’ (Lehrfreund and Hood, 2016: 140).

However, studies demonstrate that death sentencing in Bangladesh has, over the years, been marred by
arbitrariness, inequality, and procedural flaws, as we show in the next part.

Sentencing Arbitrariness
Section 367(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 provides statutory guidelines on sentencing in
capital cases. In 1978, this provision underwent a legislative amendment. Before amendment, the section

6 67 DLR (2015) AD 185. The case is popularly known as Shukur Ali case. ‘BLAST’ refers to the Bangladesh Legal Aid and
Services Trust.
7 For an analysis of the judgment, see Novak (2015).
8 Shukur Ali, (n 6) 190.

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prescribed that ‘[i]f the accused is convicted of an offence punishable with death, and the Court sentenced
him to any punishment other than death, the Court shall in its judgment state the reasons why sentence
of death was not passed.’ This provision was amended to prescribe that ‘[i]f the accused is convicted of
an offence punishable with death, or in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for
a term of years, the Court shall in its judgment state the reasons for the sentence awarded.’
The amendment of 1978 is very significant in the sense that, prior to the amendment, judges in death
penalty cases were required to pass the sentence of death unless, for reasons recorded by them, they
considered it proper to award a lesser penalty. Thus, case law prior to 1978 also confirms that the death
penalty was the presumptive sentence or rule for murder, while life imprisonment was only awarded in
exceptional circumstances. 9 The 1978 amendment delivered a drastic shift, leaving the issue of
sentencing in death penalty cases entirely to the discretion of the courts, meaning the death penalty
ceased to be the default punishment in capital cases. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of
Bangladesh explained the implications of the 1978 amendment in Abed Ali vs State: 10
Sub-section (5) of section 367 [of the Code of Criminal Procedure] previously provided that if the accused is
convicted of an offence punishable with death, and the Court sentences him to any punishment other than
death, the Court shall in its judgment state the reasons why sentence of death was not passed. The position
then was that death sentence was the normal sentence for murder and the court was required to give reasons
if the lesser sentence... was given. Sub-section (5) has been substituted by the Law Reforms Ordinance. ... It
means that now reasons have to be given in either case. A sentence of death is to be justified in as much the
same way as in the case of the lesser sentence of imprisonment for life. Here comes the consideration of what is
called extenuating circumstances in awarding the punishment. 11

It is of note that, in several cases, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh has
endorsed the ‘rarest of rare cases’ doctrine as formulated by the Indian Supreme Court. 12 There is at
least one case where the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh also refers to this
doctrine, holding: ‘Since this is not the rarest of rare cases, ends of justice will be met if the sentence of
death ... is converted into one of imprisonment for life’. 13 This judicial endorsement of the ‘rarest of rare
cases’ doctrine favours an even more restrictive approach to the imposition of the death penalty than the
legislative guidelines set by the amendment of 1978.
However, BILIA (2019) reveals that the Supreme Court of Bangladesh is not consistent in applying
the ‘rarest of rare cases’ doctrine. The High Court Division, for instance, in the case State vs Maku Rabi
Das, 14 observed that ‘normal punishment for the offence of committing murder is capital punishment,
but if there is any extenuating circumstance, then only alternative lesser punishment may be awarded’.
A similar observation by the same Division was made in Farid Ali vs The State. 15 Further, the Appellate
Division in Rokia Begum alias Rokeya Begum vs The State 16 categorically observed that it ‘is the normal
course upon finding the accused guilty of an offence under s 302 of the Penal Code to sentence him to
death unless any extenuating circumstances lead the Court to award the lesser sentence of
imprisonment for life’. In the case of Ataur Mridha @ Ataur vs State, 17 the Appellate Division reiterated
that ‘a sentence of death awarded to an offender under s 302 of the Penal Code is the rule and life

9 See Ghulam Mohammad vs Mohd. Sharif, 21 DLR (SC) (1969) 207; Ajun Shah vs The State, 19 DLR (SC) (1967)110.
10 42 DLR (AD) (1990) 171.
11
Ibid 173
12 State vs ASI Md. Ayub Ali Sardar and another, 23 BLD (HCD) (2003) 181; State Deviz and others vs State, 9 MLR (HC) (2004)
344; State vs Abdul Karim alias Gonesh & others, 8 BLC (2003) 264; State vs Mir Hossain alias Mira and others, 56 DLR (2004)
124.
13 State vs Anwar Hossain Pinto alias Anowar Hossain & another, 61 DLR (AD) (2009) 108.
14 58 DLR (2006) 229.
15 4 MLR (HC) (1999) 23.
16 4 SCOB [2015] (AD) 25.
17 14 ADC (2017) 333.

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imprisonment is an exception. The court may commute [a] death sentence to life imprisonment of a
prisoner on extenuating circumstances and in that case, it must assign reasons therefor’. Subsequently
the High Court Division in the case of State vs Oyshee Rahman 18 cited the Ataur Mridha case with
approval in the following words:
Our Apex Court very recently opined in a case of Ataur Mridha @ Ataur and another vs The State [unreported]
that the capital punishment is the rule while the imprisonment for life is an exception. It was further observed
that when the question of commutation is considered the court has to assign the reasons as to why it has
occurred.

It appears that these decisions not only conveniently ignored the ‘rarest of rare cases’ doctrine, but also
disregarded the 1978 legislative amendment.
Interestingly, however, in the Oyshee Rahman case, the High Court Division also stated that
‘practice reminds precedents that the death penalty is intended only “for the worst of the worst” crimes’.
This formulation sharply contradicts the earlier Appellate Division observation in Ataur Mridha that
the death penalty is the rule and life imprisonment is an exception.
It thus transpires that, despite having statutory guidelines on death sentencing, the higher judiciary
has taken markedly diverging positions in various cases (even within single cases, as shown above in
Oyshee Rahman). It has been pointed out that ‘so far as sentencing a convict guilty of murder is
concerned, there exists neither any rule-based nor any principle-based standards that [are] consistently
followed. Rather the matter is left for facts-based ad hoc adjudication’ (Rahman, 2017: 206).
Jurisprudence on normative guidelines on death sentencing thus keeps swinging back and forth (BILIA,
2019: 32-37).
Upon examining and analysing all murder cases reported in major law reports from 1972 to 2010,
Rahman (2017: 222) concludes that ‘the choice between taking and saving life as a sentencing option
does not necessarily follow any consistent pattern. Rather the choice is largely dependent on who
sentences’. In a similar vein, BILIA (2019: 55) also found ‘significant variance in the number of death
sentences imposed by the former judges interviewed as part of [the] study’. For example, 28 of 30 former
judges interviewed in the study disclosed the number of death sentences they had imposed during their
judicial career. 19 In total, this figure stands at approximately 237. Approximately 145 death sentences
were passed by only 3 of them, while the remaining 25 had collectively imposed approximately 92 death
sentences (BILIA, 2019: 55-56). From Rahman (2017) and BILIA (2019), it can therefore be concluded
that death sentencing in Bangladesh is, and has been, judge-centric. That is, whether or not an
individual is sentenced to death depends largely on which judge is imposing the sentence. This
sentencing arbitrariness means offenders convicted of death penalty offences do not receive equal
sentencing treatment (BILIA, 2019: 6).

Lack of Procedural Safeguards

The Constitution of Bangladesh requires that ‘no person [be] subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman,
or degrading punishment or treatment’. 20 It also protects the accused against self-incrimination. 21 The
Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, 2013 categorically prohibits custodial torture, making it

18 Death Reference No 99 of 2015 <www.supremecourt.gov.bd/resources/documents/1034142_DeathReference99of2015pdf.pdf>.

19 All former judges interviewed for this study had decided death penalty cases. Each began their career as a judge between 1977
and 1989, retired between 2006 and 2017, and served the judiciary for a period ranging from 25 to 34 years.
20 Article 35(5).
21 Article 35(4) provides that ‘no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself’.

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a punishable offence. 22 The higher judiciary has, in many cases, also clarified that the use of torture is
absolutely prohibited. 23
However, recent studies have shown that practices on the ground do not conform to normative
standards. In the BILIA (2019) study, most interviewees (25 out of 28 former judges) categorically stated
that torture is routinely, regularly or frequently inflicted by the police during investigation, primarily to
ensure that an accused gives a confessional statement to magistrates. Several former judges confirmed
that magistrates recording confessions often turn a blind eye to the use of torture and certify ‘tortured
confessions’ as ‘voluntary confessions’. These ‘voluntary confessions’ can legally be sufficient for the
pronouncement of the sentence of death against the accused (BILIA, 2019: 80). The same study also
found that 20 per cent of former judges interviewed in this study either explicitly or implicitly justified
the use of torture. This indicates that a section of the judiciary, to some extent, condones, tolerates, or
endorses custodial torture. The result is that there is every possibility that an accused caught in such a
system may be condemned to death by dint of a confession induced through torture (BILIA, 2019: 80).
Similarly, Rahman (2020) found most interview respondents were dissatisfied with the quality and
integrity of investigations, primarily because of the alleged use of torture as an investigation tool. In this
study, one third of the families of prisoners in death row claimed that the inmates were tortured in police
custody for the purpose of extracting confessional statements. Interviews conducted for this study also
indicate that ‘torture as a tool of investigation may have become normalised, or at least accepted to some
extent’ (Rahman, 2020: 39).
Most former judges interviewed in the BILIA (2019) study conceded that wrongful convictions do, or
may, occur within the present criminal justice system, confirming that evidence is at times planted by
the prosecution. They also highlighted abuse of police powers and corruption of prosecution lawyers as
factors contributing to such wrongful convictions. In this context, given the rampant culture of torture
and abuse of power by various criminal justice agencies in Bangladesh, the need for adequate legal
assistance as a procedural safeguard is especially pressing for accused persons facing the death penalty.
The former judges, however, were largely dissatisfied with the quality of legal representation, especially
when the accused is poor (BILIA, 2019: 30, 80). In Rahman (2020), one-third of interviewees (family
members of death-sentenced prisoners) were also dissatisfied with the quality of legal representation
their family members had received. In particular, the quality of state defence lawyers was heavily
criticised by the respondents (Rahman, 2020: 31).
All these factors suggest that the current system does not, in practice, provide adequate procedural
safeguard for accused persons charged with a death eligible offence.

Socio-economic Bias
The evidence from various jurisdictions convincingly shows that the death penalty has a disproportionate
impact on the poor, powerless, vulnerable, and marginalised sections of society (see Bright 2008, 2014,
2016). Rahman (2020) shows the Bangladesh context is not differently situated. Based on interviews
with family members of 39 death row prisoners, and primary case records, the study found that none of
the prisoners under the study belonged to upper or upper-middle classes of socio-economic strata. Over
half of the prisoners sentenced to death were either unemployed or low-paid salaried employees, with

22 Sections 13 and 15.

23 For example, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in the case of Bangladesh vs Bangladesh Legal Aid
and Services Trust (BLAST) and others, 8 SCOB [2016] AD 1, stated: ‘No law enforcement agencies shall inflict, instigate or
tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, nor shall any law enforcement
agencies invoke superior orders or exceptional circumstances such as a state of war or a threat of war, a threat to national
security, internal political instability or any other public emergency as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.’

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almost three quarters of them economically vulnerable. Almost a quarter were the sole earners for their
families. 24
It was also found that prisoners sentenced to death in Bangladesh generally have low educational
attainments. In his study of 39 death row prisoners, Rahman (2020: 31) found that 87 per cent of
prisoners did not have an educational qualification above secondary school level.

Increasingly Long Death Row Stays

In Bangladesh, after an accused is sentenced to death by the trial judge, the proceedings are sent to the
High Court Division (HCD) as a Death Reference Case and the death sentence cannot be carried out
unless it is confirmed by the HCD. 25 If the HCD does confirm a sentence of death passed by the trial
court, or sentences a person to imprisonment for life, the prisoner is entitled to an appeal as of right to
the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. 26 A review petition against the judgment of
the Appellate Division can also be filed subsequently. 27 Although the steps necessary to finally sentence
a person to death appear rigorous, the ordeal of those so sentenced by the trial judges begins
immediately. As soon as the trial court verdict is handed down, the convict is placed in a ‘condemned cell’
(that is, an isolated prison cell) to await execution (Rahman, 2020: 24).
In recent years, the number of death sentences handed down by the trial courts has significantly
increased. While the number of death row prisoners in November 2011 was 1009, it jumped to 2000 in
June 2021 (Moneruzzaman, 2021; Sankar Kumar, 2021), contributing to the huge backlog of Death
Reference Cases. Although more than two-thirds of death sentences passed by trial courts are not
confirmed by the HCD (Silvee and Wu, 2021), and many of those confirmed by the HCD are also
overturned by the Appellate Division, the increasing number of death reference cases nonetheless causes
enormous delay in higher court proceedings. This delay is ultimately responsible for prolonged detention
of inmates and their protracted isolation on death row.
The Death Reference Cases studied in Rahman (2020) took on average, 4½ years for adjudication by
the trial courts (from the date of registration of case) and, thereafter, another 5½ years for disposal by
the HCD. From filing of the cases to their disposal by the HCD, more than 10 years passed in almost
half of the cases. In one case, a prisoner spent more than 16 years and 8 months from the filing of the
case until disposal by the HCD. Yet this is not the end of the judicial process as judgments of the HCD
are still amenable to appellate and review jurisdictions by the Appellate Division (Rahman, 2020: 31).
In one case, a college-level student with no prior criminal record was sentenced to death by the trial court
but ultimately acquitted by the HCD. However, during the entire proceeding, he had remained in custody
for more than 11 years (Rahman, 2020: 43).
Prolonged detention under sentence of death has been declared unconstitutional in a number of
countries (Novak, 2014). However, the constitutionality of the death row phenomenon has never been
challenged in Bangladesh, although delay has been accepted as a mitigating circumstance to commute
death sentences in some cases. In an empirical analysis of judgments, Malik (2000) examined how the
appellate courts accept the plea of delay as a mitigating factor in death penalty cases. The study exposed
huge disparity and concluded that the treatment of delay as a mitigating factor is far from consistent.
Rahman (2017: 206-209), in his study, came up with same findings.

24 As Rahman (2020) relied on a relatively small sample size, his findings may not be generalised to all death sentenced prisoners
in Bangladesh. However, the findings do give some indication of the socio-economic profiles of death sentenced prisoners in
Bangladesh.
25 Section 374, The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898; s 30(2), The Special Powers Act, 1974; s 29, The Suppression of Violence
against Women and Children Act, 2000; s 27, The Acid Offence Control Act, 2002; s 31(2), The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009.
26 Article 103(2)(b), The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
27 Article 105, The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

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Social and Economic Impacts of the Death Penalty

Rahman (2020) ‘not only exposes flaws in the justice process but also uncovers some important
dimensions of the personal and family-level impacts of death penalty litigation’ (Rahman and Wadud,
2022). Extensive interviews with the families of 39 death row prisoners showed that almost all families
suffered financial losses as a result of the legal proceedings against the prisoners. The problem was so
acute that the families of 22 death row prisoners could not even afford regular family visits to the prison,
and economic hardship led six families to sell landed property (Rahman, 2020: 43).

The social impact of death penalty litigation, an important aspect that is often overlooked, was also
brought to light through this study.

[T]he families of 21 prisoners were subjected to attacks and harassment of various forms by the local people,
including vandalism, forced transfer of properties, continuous stigmatisation, and forced social isolation. This
behaviour forced four families to relocate their place of residence (Rahman, 2020: 44).

The brother of one death row prisoner clearly depicted the devastating combined socio-economic impacts
of death penalty litigation:

He worked as an employee of a general store and our family was entirely dependent on his income ... In fighting
the case, we had to sell all landed property, including the homestead lands, sell my mother’s jewellery and take
loans. We are now penniless … After the verdict, our parents died from the grief and his wife fled from the
marriage. I had to move to Dhaka city to avoid public shaming and now work as a shop assistant (Rahman,
2020: 44).

Another family told a similar story:

When arrested, the prisoner was 23, had a wife and a five-year-old son. He was engaged in agribusiness and
was the sole earner of the family. Soon after his arrest, the family members of the victim vandalised and
ransacked their house. The prisoner’s wife struggled hard for five years to maintain the child. She then joined
a garments factory as a worker and has been working there for two years. An amount of approximately 0.6
million Bangladeshi Taka has already been spent in fighting the case. To raise the money, she had to mortgage
their landed properties and take loans with interest. The loan amount is yet to be repaid. Because of economic
hardships, she cannot even afford to regularly visit her husband in prison (Rahman, 2020: 44).

Conclusion
The evidence from Bangladesh convincingly indicates the presence of arbitrariness and disparity in the
application of the death penalty, exposes numerous flaws in the justice process leading to the imposition
of the death penalty, and tells us the social, personal and family-level adverse impacts of death penalty
litigation. These findings are important in the sense that they have the potential to encourage
researchers to generate more studies of the application of the death penalty and to intensify debates on
the legitimacy of the death penalty.
Well-informed debates and discussions can eventually succeed in challenging the taken-for-granted
assumptions and notions that strengthen the currently dominant retentionist position. Notwithstanding
the absence of any systematic study on the deterrent impact of the death penalty in Bangladesh, the
retentionists, to substantiate their argument, primarily rely on the deterrent utility of the death penalty
(BILIA, 2019: 81-83). Even if we agree, for the sake of argument, that the death penalty has a unique
deterrent role in reducing serious crimes, that is not sufficient to lend legitimacy to the death penalty.

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The emerging issues of ‘justice’ in the administration of the death penalty cannot be ignored just to
uphold its supposed ‘utility’. 28

References
BILIA [Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs] (2019) The Death Penalty Regime in Bangladesh: Exploring
Perspectives of Former Judges. Dhaka: BILIA.
Bright, Stephen B (2016) ‘Rigged: When Race and Poverty Determine Outcomes in the Criminal Courts’, 14(1) Ohio State Journal
of Criminal Law: 263.
Bright, Stephen B (2014) ‘Imposition of the Death Penalty upon the Poor, Racial Minorities, the Intellectually Disabled and the
Mentally Ill’, in Ivan Simonovic (ed), Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives. New York:
United Nations.
Bright, Stephen B (2008) ‘The Failure to Achieve Fairness: Race and Poverty Continue to Influence Who Dies’, 11(1) Journal of
Constitutional Law: 23-38.
Bulkan, Arif (2014) ‘The Death Penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean: Justice out of Reach?’, in Ivan Simonovic (ed), Moving
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Dey, Shankar Kumar (2021) ‘েডথ েরফােরে�র জেট কনেডম েসেল ফাঁিসর আসািম বাড়েছ ’ [Number of Death Row Convicts Increases
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FIDH [International Federation for Human Rights] (2019) ‘Punished for being Vulnerable: How Pakistan Executes the Poorest and
the Most Marginalized in Society’ <https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/pakistan740angweb.pdf>
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28 Analysing the BILIA (2019) study which is based on interviews of former trial court judges, Hoyle and Lehrfreund (2020: 160)
rightly observe: ‘Clearly, in the minds of these judges, utilitarianism trumped human rights for those exposed to corrupt and
unreliable processes.’

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Australian Journal of Asian Law Vol 24 No 1

Rahman, Muhammad Mahbubur (2020) Living under Sentence of Death: A Study on the Profiles, Experiences and Perspectives of
Death Row Prisoners in Bangladesh. Dhaka: Department of Law, University of Dhaka.
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Nijhoff.
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Legislation
Penal Code 1860
The Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, 2013
Children Act of 2013
The Official Secrets Act of 1923
The Enemy Agents Ordinance of 1943
The International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973
The Army Act of 1952
The Air Force Act of 1953
The Navy Ordinance of 1961
The Border Guard Bangladesh Act of 2010
The Bangladesh Coast Guard Act of 2016

Court Cases
Abed Ali vs State, 42 DLR (AD) (1990) 171
Ajun Shah vs The State, 19 DLR (SC) (1967)110
Ataur Mridha @ Ataur vs State, 14 ADC (2017) 333
BLAST and others vs Bangladesh and others, 67 DLR (2015) AD 185
Farid Ali vs The State, 4 MLR (HC) (1999) 23
Ghulam Mohammad vs Mohd. Sharif, 21 DLR (SC) (1969) 207
Rokia Begum alias Rokeya Begum vs The State, 4 SCOB [2015] (AD) 25
State vs Maku Rabi Das, 58 DLR (2006) 229
State vs Anwar Hossain Pinto alias Anowar Hossain & another, 61 DLR (AD) (2009) 108
State vs Oyshee Rahman, Death Reference No 99 of 2015
State vs ASI Md. Ayub Ali Sardar and another, 23 BLD (HCD) (2003) 181
State Deviz and others vs State, 9 MLR (HC) (2004) 344
State vs Abdul Karim alias Gonesh & others, 8 BLC (2003) 264
State vs Mir Hossain alias Mira and others, 56 DLR (2004) 124
State vs Anwar Hossain Pinto alias Anowar Hossain & another, 61 DLR (AD) (2009) 108

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