A Law That Freezes Politics

A democracy changes character when the executive can, by a single gazette notification, effectively freeze a political party. No prior judicial finding. No due process.

Just immediate legal force. What is at stake here is not simply the fate of one party, but a far deeper constitutional question: Can a government, through executive action alone, suspend organized political participation itself?

The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill 2026 forces that question into the open, because it does more than amend a statute. It creates a legal pathway through which political competition can be curtailed by state power.

When law begins to make opposition conditional on executive permission, democracy is no longer merely under pressure; it is being fundamentally redefined.

The Bill has now turned what was originally an interim ordinance into permanent law, with surprisingly no scrutiny. The amendments to Sections 18(1) and 20 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 significantly expand executive power.

Section 18(1) allows the government to suspend the activities of a political party through a gazette notification. Section 20 extends that suspension across nearly every sphere of political life public statements, media engagement, social media activity, rallies, meetings, and even support structures.

Taken together, these provisions create a legal mechanism through which political activity can be shut down without a prior judicial finding that a party meets the legal threshold of terrorism.

Taken together, these provisions resemble what constitutional scholars describe as a shift from ‘liberal constitutionalism to executive constitutionalism’, where the executive no longer operates within clearly enforced boundaries but instead becomes the primary interpreter and enforcer of political limits.

Before these amendments, the law allowed the state to declare an “entity” prohibited. It did not give the executive the power to paralyze the full political life of a party. Now it does. A party may still exist on paper, but if it cannot organize, speak, campaign, or mobilize, its existence becomes purely symbolic. In practice, it is frozen.

What has been created is not simply a legal amendment, but a framework that makes political control easier to exercise. A government that feels threatened can use it to immobilize opposition with startling speed, often before any meaningful legal challenge can begin. That is how democratic erosion can happen, not only through overt repression, but through laws that centralize power while preserving the appearance of legality.

We have already seen this power used against the Awami League. Whatever political disagreements exist today, it remains the party that led Bangladesh’s liberation struggle and continues to enjoy broad public support. That is what makes this precedent so troubling.

The restrictions began with a gazette notification, were later reinforced by ordinance, and are now being made permanent through law. The irony is difficult to ignore: An amendment that appears designed, in effect, to disable the political activity of one party has been used against the Awami League itself.

In substance, that kind of targeted legal design raises serious democratic and constitutional concerns, because laws framed or applied in a way that neutralize specific political actors undermine the very idea of equal political competition. In a constitutional democracy, the law is meant to regulate politics, not to reshape its outcomes.

There is also a deeper contradiction here. A party tied to the country’s independence can have its politics frozen, while a party long associated with collaboration with Pakistan in 1971 opposed to Bangladesh’s liberation and accused of genocide and crimes against humanity against its own people can continue to operate and sit in Parliament.

That raises serious questions not only about fairness and constitutional consistency, but also about fidelity to the ideals of the Liberation War itself. This is not just about one party. When executive power is used to sideline a major political force in this way, it risks deepening instability, weakening public trust, and shrinking democratic space for everyone.

Across democratic experience, there is no precedent where a party that led a country’s liberation or independence movement has later been frozen or banned through executive action.

Liberation movements that evolve into major political forces whether in South Asia, Africa, or elsewhere are generally treated as part of the constitutional identity of the state, even when they later become politically contested.

That is why the idea of freezing such a party carries a particularly heavy constitutional and symbolic cost.

From a constitutional design perspective, this reflects what theorists describe as a “weak horizontal accountability structure” where institutions meant to check executive power (like parliament) fail to act as effective constraints.

That failure matters, because laws of this kind do not remain confined to the hands that first enact them. Power changes. Governments change. Precedents endure. What is used against one political force today may be used against another tomorrow. That is the deeper danger.

This is not simply about blaming one government, because every government seeks to expand its authority. The real constitutional failure lies in allowing that authority to grow without checks. The executive now holds not only the power to govern, but potentially the power to decide who may participate in politics at all.

And once law begins to determine not just the rules of politics, but who is allowed to exist within politics, the line between democratic governance and political control begins to blur.

The Constitutional Problem

This law violates the Constitution of Bangladesh on multiple foundational grounds. The Constitution explicitly protects political freedom, association, and expression. Article 37 guarantees every citizen the right to assemble. Article 38 protects the right to form associations or unions. Article 39 secures freedom of thought, conscience, and speech. In effect, this law violates all of these rights at once.

The new amendments allow the executive to override these constitutional guarantees by making such determinations unilaterally through a simple gazette notification, without judicial scrutiny, without due process, and without any opportunity for the affected party to be heard.

In doing so, the law does not merely regulate political activity; it permits the executive to suspend fundamental rights through administrative action alone, raising profound constitutional concerns about arbitrariness, and the erosion of democratic safeguards.

But the violation extends far beyond the party itself. A political party with substantial popular support does not exist in isolation; it is the institutional expression of hundreds of thousands or millions of citizens who have chosen to associate with it, to support it, and to advance their political views through it. When the executive freezes a major political party through administrative notification, it simultaneously violates the fundamental rights of all those supporters.

The millions of citizens who belong to this party, who have invested their political identity and hopes in it, who have exercised their constitutional right to associate with it, now find that right extinguished by executive fiat.

Article 38's protection of the right to form and join associations is meaningless if that right can be stripped away. When citizens have lawfully joined a political party a choice the Constitution explicitly protects they do not forfeit that protection simply because the executive decides.

Article 31 of the Constitution establishes a cardinal principle: "No action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in accordance with law." When a political party's fundamental right to exist and function is frozen by an administrative notification, this is precisely such an action.

At a deeper level, this reflects the idea of ‘due process as a democratic safeguard against arbitrary state power’. The violation is not limited to the party itself; it extends to every member and supporter. Article 31 is violated millions of times over, once for each citizen whose political rights have been extinguished.

Article 27 of the Constitution guarantees equality before law and equal protection. This principle is breached not simply because a political party is restricted, but because the restriction depends entirely on executive discretion without objective legal standards. When a gazette notification can instantly paralyze one political party while others function normally, and when the determination is made by the executive as sole judge of its own power, this violates equal protection.

When a government uses the Anti-Terrorism Act to suspend or freeze the activities of a major political party, it does more than target an opponent; it risks replacing democratic competition with political monopoly. And where monopoly over politics takes hold, dictatorial tendencies are never far behind.

The amendments to Sections 18(1) and 20 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 are deeply troubling for precisely this reason: They place extraordinary power in executive hands while weakening the safeguards that protect against arbitrary use.

When millions of citizens have chosen to associate with a political party, restricting that association is not simply action against one organization; it is a direct interference with the democratic rights of an entire political constituency.

When law is used to close political space instead of protecting freedom and when millions can be denied political participation without due process, what emerges is not the rule of law, but a path toward monopoly and authoritarian rule.

Kollol Kibria is an Advocate, Human Rights Activist, and Political Analyst. He can be reached at [email protected].