On Tuesday, the High Court of Bangladesh has declared that the Chittagong Regional Council Act of 1998 was unconstitutional for violating the “sanctity of a unitary state”. However the court also ruled that due to the lack of proper jurisdiction, it cannot consider whether or not the Chittagong Peace Accord itself was unconstitutional.
Syed Refaat Ahmed and Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury are the bench of justices who said that the 1997 Accord has to be read together with its decision on the illegality of the 1998 Act. The part of the Accord dealing with the Regional Council has no legal effect anymore. The judges gave some guidelines on how it could proceed and urged the government to continue the peace process.
On Thursday, the government might be going back to the High Court.