A Supreme Court verdict paved Hasina's power consolidation, a High Court ruling triggered her fall

Two landmark court rulings, delivered 13 years apart, bookended Sheikh Hasina's 15-year rule, according to senior Supreme Court lawyers, court records and testimony before the International Crimes Tribunal.

Legal experts say the first judgment cleared the path for her consolidation of power, while the second ignited the student uprising that ultimately brought her government down.

The first came on May 10, 2011, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court struck down the Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing the caretaker government system that had overseen parliamentary elections since the 1990s.

The second came on June 5, 2024, when the High Court reinstated quotas in government recruitment by declaring illegal the government's decision to abolish the quota system for certain public service posts.

That ruling triggered nationwide student protests that rapidly evolved into the July mass uprising, culminating in Hasina's departure from power on August 5, 2024.

Legal experts say these two judgments became defining milestones in Bangladesh's recent political history.

The 2011 verdict, delivered by a bench headed by then Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque, declared the caretaker government system unconstitutional. Within weeks, Parliament enacted the Fifteenth Amendment, permanently abolishing the election-time neutral administration.

The judgment immediately drew controversy. Although the court's short verdict had stated that elections could still be held under caretaker governments for two further terms, that observation disappeared when the full judgment was published nearly two years later.

Critics argue that the ruling fundamentally altered Bangladesh's electoral architecture, paving the way for successive elections boycotted or disputed by opposition parties.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer Shishir Monir told Daily Waadaa that the judgment triggered one of the country's longest-running constitutional controversies.

"The short verdict was announced just three days before the chief justice retired, while the full judgment was released two years later. It was a judgment that deceived both the legal profession and the justice system,” said Monir. 

“Once the caretaker government system was abolished, Sheikh Hasina was able to centralize power and gradually establish authoritarian rule," he added.

Talking with Waadaa, Attorney General Barrister Ruhul Quddus Kajal said the verdict reshaped the balance of state power.

"The abolition of the caretaker government system dismantled Bangladesh's electoral framework. Democratic institutions steadily weakened, allowing the executive to dominate the judiciary, legislature and other constitutional bodies," he said.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer and BNP Legal Affairs Secretary Barrister Badruddoza Badal said Hasina's political trajectory was defined by two judicial decisions.

"Her rise began with the 2011 caretaker government verdict. Her fall began with the 2024 High Court ruling on quotas, which reignited a movement the government ultimately failed to contain," he told Waadaa.

More than a decade after abolishing the caretaker government system, the High Court again found itself at the centre of a political turning point.

On June 5, 2024, the court declared illegal a 2018 government circular abolishing quotas for freedom fighters' descendants in direct recruitment to Grades 9 through 13 of government service, effectively restoring the quota system.

The ruling immediately reignited student anger. On June 6, students at the University of Dhaka launched demonstrations demanding the abolition of quotas. Within weeks, protests spread across universities nationwide before transforming into the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement.

According to documents submitted before the International Crimes Tribunal, the quota protests became the starting point of the July uprising that eventually toppled the Awami League government after nearly 15 years in power.

In his testimony before Tribunal-1 on September 17, 2025, Anti-Discrimination Student Movement chief coordinator Nahid Islam traced the movement directly to the June 5 judgment.

Nahid, who later became convener of the National Citizen Party (NCP), testified that the quota ruling revived unresolved grievances dating back to the 2018 quota reform movement. He described how protests intensified after students viewed the judgment as reversing an earlier victory and alleged that security forces responded with escalating repression, arrests and violence.

His testimony forms part of the prosecution's case against Sheikh Hasina, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun before the International Crimes Tribunal.

According to the tribunal case records, nearly 1,400 people were killed, more than 20,000 were injured and hundreds suffered permanent disabilities during the nearly two-month nationwide unrest before Hasina left the country on August 5, 2024.

Following the change in government, the High Court on December 17, 2024 declared several provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment—including the abolition of the caretaker government system—unconstitutional and restored the constitutional provision for referendums.

However, it stopped short of striking down the amendment in its entirety. The government's appeal against that judgment remains pending before the Appellate Division.

—