A Shift from Constructive Unamendability to Codified Petrification— The Identification of the Fifteenth Amendment as an Undesirable Constitutional Dismemberment in Bangladesh

The Constitution of Bangladesh is the solemn will of the people written at the dawn of the nation’s history as the supreme law of the land. Initially, it was a rigid yet amendable one and over the course of next four decades, the restrictions over amendment process has evolved into a hybrid mechanism of both interpretive and constructive unamendabilities. In 2011, the constructive unamendability has been replaced with new provisions petrifying an one-third of the Constitution through the Fifteenth Amendment which was not introduced in a constitutionally coherent way. The petrification has been protected through Article 7B which is popularly termed an an eternal clause owing to its self-entrenching character. This provision has recently been declared unconstitutional by the apex judiciary of Bangladesh. This paper will provide an identification of the Fifteenth Amendment as a potential instance of an undesirable constitutional dismemberment in Bangladesh.