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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the legendary decision of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Apart from this, the author’s aim is to analyse the constitutional interpretation done by the Higher Judiciary of the Country. Another aim of this note is to simplify the decision of this case for the understanding of the mass people and law students.

To conclude this paper, both qualitative and analytical methods have been used.

In this paper, a summarized fact of the case has been presented. In addition to that, decision of the High Court Division in the Writ petition has been simplified with six simple points. Moreover, major arguments submitted by both the Appellant’s and Respondent’s Lawyers have been summarized. Decision of the Appellate Division has been simplified with 12 simple points along with the reasoning behind the judgement.

In this paper, only the case of Secretary, Ministry of Finance vs Md. Masdar Hossain and Others has been studied and analysed in depth.

This paper will mainly help the Law and Social Science students for simply understanding the decision and the reasoning behind the decision of the case. Apart from that, this case noting will help both academics and legal professionals to study this case within a short period.

This paper will help mass people who want to study about this case to simply understand the case in depth. In addition to that, people will get known about the procedure hoe the subordinate judiciary of Bangladesh became independent.

This conceptual paper is the original piece of work and is not under review in any other journal. This paper has not been published previously in any other journal.

The main aim of this paper is to analyze judicial system of Bangladesh, which comprises all courts and tribunals that performs the delicate task of ensuring rule of law in the society. The paper depicts the history and evolution of the judicial system in Bangladesh from ancient period to present day.

The study is qualitative in nature and based on secondary sources of materials like books, journal articles, government orders, rules, acts, newspaper reports, etc. Relevant literature has also been collected through internet browsing.

The major findings of this paper are: there is a well‐organized court system in Bangladesh which is in fact the replica of the system introduced by British rulers and it is widely accepted in the original Constitution of Bangladesh. The ancient judicial system was not based on rule of law rather on caprice and caste consideration. The executive branch of government always attempts to control the judiciary through different mechanisms, which include the appointment, tenure and discipline of judges from ancient period. Therefore, the independence of judiciary is vulnerable from ancient time to present day and even after separation of the judiciary from the executive (November 2007) the interference of the executive over the judiciary is still continuing.

This paper opens a new window for the policy makers and concerned authorities to take necessary steps for overcoming the existing limitations of judiciary.

The paper will be of interest to legal practitioners, policy makers, members of civil society, and those in the field of judicial system in Bangladesh and some other British colonial common law countries.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the status of independence of the judiciary in Bangladesh. It is recognized worldwide that an independent judiciary is the sin qua non of democracy and good governance. However, without separation of the judiciary from other organs of the state absolute independence of judiciary is not possible. An attempt has been made in this paper to sketch the brief historical background of judicial system in Bangladesh through analyzing the meaning and basic principles of judicial independence and to what extent these principles exists in Bangladesh. How did the judiciary finally separate from the executive? After separation of the judiciary, what is the status of executive interference over judiciary in Bangladesh has also been evaluated in this paper.

The study is qualitative in nature and based on secondary sources of materials like books, journal articles, government rules, newspaper reports, etc. Relevant literature has also been collected through Internet browsing.

In this study, it has been found that from time immemorial the judicial system of Bangladesh was not completely independent from the interference of the executive branch of the government. It has also been found that from the beginning of the British colonial rule, the question of separation of the judiciary from the executive had been a continuing debate. Presently, even after separation of the judiciary, the interference of the executive over the judiciary is still continuing.

This paper opens a new window for the policy makers and concerned authorities to take necessary steps for overcoming the existing limitations of the status of judicial dependence in Bangladesh.

The paper will be of interest to legal practitioners, policy makers, members of civil society, and those in the field of judicial system in Bangladesh and some other British colonial common law countries.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of the judiciary in ensuring legal accountability of government officials and its impact on governance in the context of Bangladesh. Although, the judicial system of Bangladesh comprises Supreme Court, subordinate courts and tribunals. However, this study focuses Supreme Court only to keep the study in a manageable extent.

The study is qualitative in nature and based on content analysis. Dhaka Law Report (DLR), which is a monthly published report on case laws[1] decided by the Supreme Court has been selected as content for this study. Some case laws selected from DLR (2004‐2008) were analyzed using purposive sampling method, with a view to evaluating the effectiveness of judiciary (as an external but formal mechanism of accountability) in accountability of government administration and management and its impact on overall governance.

The most important finding of this paper is that the judiciary is very effective for ensuring legal accountability of government officials, which ultimately contributes to human rights and good governance. However, a major problem found was that until and unless an affected person files a case against a government authority, maintaining the required procedures of judiciary, it (the judiciary) has no scope to settle any disputes. Though there is a provision of Suo Muto (by own initiative) rule of the Supreme Court, this practice is very rare in Bangladesh. Furthermore, the executive is responsible for implementing the verdict of the judiciary. Therefore, if the government has not enough respect for, or does not care to implement judiciary's verdict, justice and rule of law will not be ensured. This study also found some cases like this.

This work does not address detailed issues of governance and is not based on empirical data.

This is a mixed study of judiciary and public administration, which is very rare in Bangladesh. Therefore, it will be brought into line with current practice by the concerned researchers and policy makers in public administration and judiciary.

This paper will be of interest to legal practitioners, policy makers, academicians and those in the field of governance.

This paper aims to examine accountability arrangements in Bangladesh and to identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as potentials for improvement.

The study is based on review and analysis of published documents and data and information obtained on field visits to Bangladesh.

The administrative system in Bangladesh is driven by complex rules and procedures with weak institutional support. Internal mechanisms of accountability in administrative organizations have become ineffective due to existing political, economic and social conditions. Therefore, the external mechanisms of accountability must be strengthened to ensure good governance in Bangladesh.

A weak system of accountability renders the task of public management difficult and the establishment of good governance unattainable. Improvements in social conditions can be expected with the strengthening of accountability mechanisms.

The value of this paper lies in the identification of factors such as institutional disharmony, politicization and corruption as the most formidable barriers to accountability and good governance in Bangladesh. It presents a fresh analysis of the factors and points to the potentials for improvement.

This study investigates the tax evasion practices in a lower-middle income economy in South Asia, with specific reference to Bangladesh (which is the only economy within South Asia that had consistent 6% and above gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 2011 to 2013). This study adopted mixed methodology (documentary analyses and a focus group interviews with 20 participants) to reach the overall objective of the research. Using Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural theory, the contribution of the study is that the cultural dimension itself cannot correspond to the causes of tax evasion, the other institutional factors (e.g., political connectedness in both private and public sectors, multinational companies (MNC)’s role and corruption, and a lack of public sector accountability and enforcement) are needed to complement the causes of tax evasion. The second major contribution is that Hofstede’s last two dimensions (i.e., short-term and restraint society) can correspond to the preliminary four dimensions (i.e., uncertainty avoidance (UA), masculinity, power distance (PD), and individualism). A restraint society such as Bangladesh is short-term oriented and has established corruption norms and secretive culture. There is also a perception by corporate business that the tax system as unfair and this has major consequences for the poor and the level of trust between the tax authorities and the taxpayers. This study also questions Hofstede’s model application in other developing economies with military and democracy political regimes. The major policy implications include Income Tax Ordinance, the reform of tax administration and enforcement. The novelty of this study rests in the fact that the findings may well inform local and international policymakers (e.g., World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)) regarding how to tackle tax evasion practices in lower-middle income economies like Bangladesh. Further, it fills a gap in the literature exploring tax evasion in a lower-middle income economy – in this case, Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the factors influencing the relative success and failure of new public management (NPM) initiatives in the developing world, with particular reference to Singapore and Bangladesh.

Secondary materials have been extensively used, interpreted and reinterpreted to substantiate the arguments. The analysis has been confined to two countries. However, the experiences of NPM initiatives of other countries have also been analysed to strengthen the arguments.

There are some critical factors such as the advanced level of economic development, the existence of a formal market economy, the rule of law, the advanced level of administrative infrastructure and state efficiency for the success of NPM‐oriented reforms. To a large extent, Singapore fulfills these conditions. Bangladesh is lagging behind these conditions, and has achieved very little in NPM initiatives. The findings also indicate that there is still a greater role of the state in socio‐economic transformation in general and implementation of market‐oriented reforms in particular.

The Singapore case offers ample lessons for low‐income developing countries such as Bangladesh who are struggling with their administrative reforms.

The value of the paper lies in clearly delineating the factors of success and failure and relating these to concrete cases on a comparative basis. More importantly, analyses of the Bangladesh case could be of immense value to state decision makers of Bangladesh and countries with similar socio‐economic and political standings.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how agency conflicts between people and main government organs affect the combatting ability of white-collar money laundering in an emerging economy.

This paper uses a qualitative design under the philosophy of interpretivism. The case study research strategy is used inductively to investigate how structural limitations affect white-collar money laundering.

This study reveals that serious agency conflicts exist between public and main government organs which are detrimental to the rights of people to enjoy a crime-free society. First agency conflict of people and legislature intensifies as a result of limited understanding of the legislature and failure to take precautionary actions to develop an anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime with evolving global standards. This delay has resulted in identifying Sri Lanka as a deficient AML/CFT regime twice. The second conflicts arise between people and the executive which is a serious conflict due to misuse of statutory power and failure to perform duties. The independence and integrity of administrative authorities who perform executive functions were inherent problems of implementing a sound AML/CFT regime. Lack of monitoring, nonavailability of an independent audit and inappropriate reporting channels were other encouraging factors of administrative organs to misuse statutory power. The third conflict between people and the judiciary was not intensified because the function was not so exposed to create agency conflicts. After all, an adequate number of cases had not proceeded to the judiciary due to inherent limitations as a result of intensified first two agency conflicts. The agency conflicts have intensified over the years and AML/CFT regime has been ineffective as a result of limited influence and understanding of the principal, people. Therefore, the principal has to influence the agents to make reforms in the AML/CFT regime to make the country a white-collar crime-free country.

This study uses a case study strategy to assess the context of Sri Lanka as an emerging economy. It is recommended to take into consideration the contextual facts when the findings are applied to other jurisdictions.

This paper is an original work of the authors which discusses how agency conflicts arise between people and three main government organs in implementing a sound AML/CFT regime in Sri Lanka as an emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explain and come to an understanding of origin and growth relating to the concept of environment and sustainable development in domestic and international laws; also to show the rationality of enlisting the right to the environment as a basic right in the constitution, that would help to protect this value from the detrimental activities of private entities and states, and also to show the rationality of institutional development.

This paper attempts to focus on environment and sustainable development in Bangladesh. The research is based upon theoretical sources and empirical data.

An environment is a set of natural, artificial or man‐made, physical, chemical and biological elements that make the existence, transformation and development of living organisms possible. The appearance of the environmental law arose from the need to conserve the environment in order to avoid its destruction and, as a result, the danger that an adequate quality of life might disappear. By conservation, we understand all those measures that are necessary to preserve the environment and natural resources. In modern times, human development corresponds to the concept of sustainable development and environment. It is a transverse theme derived from joint consideration of the issue of the environment and environmental protection, and of all that concerns production in the development of a country or nation.

The paper is original in calling for making the constitution a weapon, in as much as the environment should be fit for human development so that productive activities may meet present needs without compromising those of future generations. The environment is an independent value and needs as strict protection as other commonly agreed values, such as the right to property, or the right to life and health.

Purpose – This study aims at presenting an overview, development, and process of current corporate governance practices in Bangladesh.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Based on New Institutional Sociology (NIS) as a theoretical framework and by using archival data, this study highlights the roles of key institutional forces in reinforcing the existing corporate governance practices in Bangladesh.

Findings – This study notes that corporate governance practices in Bangladesh are still at infancy. While Bangladesh is trying to adopt many international corporate governance best practices for institutional legitimacy, the weak institutional enforcement regime, along with the absence of an effective check and balance, poses serious challenges to the firm-level good corporate governance practices in Bangladesh. The absence of isomorphic pressures to regulate the firms leads to many incidences of noncompliance.

Practical implications – This study takes part in the following global debate: whether corporate governance in an emerging economy is a reality or an illusion.

Originality/Value – This study seeks to contribute to the increasing literature by recognizing the interest of readers, academics, practitioners, and regulators to gain more insight and understanding of corporate governance practices in an emerging economy, such as Bangladesh.