BARRTSTER RAFIQUL HAQUE
Bangladeshi Lawyer Barrister Rafiqul Haque was an activist of the Juba Congress, led by the late Indira Gandhi, when he was a student. He was elected social secretary to the Calcutta University Central Students’ Union, twice. However, his involvement in politics ended with his days at the university. ‘I had to struggle to establish myself. I had to be busy in earning my livelihood,’ says Rafique-ul Huq.Born in 1935 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Rafique became a barrister-at-law in 1961, came back to Dhaka in 1962 and started practising law at the High Court. He became an advocate to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1965.
As is the case with all success stories, he got a couple of lucky breaks. In 1965 his senior Ashraful Hossain was busy with the arbitration on the dispute between Pakistan and India over Rann of the Kutch island. Rafique had to seek time for the hearing in a series of cases due to the absence of his senior counsel. He started moving the cases after the court had asked him to.
Allah Buksh Khoda Buksh Brohi, a legendary lawyer of the time, also gave him a break in the same year. Brohi hired him as a senior counsel in a tax-related case. As Brohi was moving the case before the Supreme Court, presided over by the chief justice Cornelius, Rafique tried to make some points to Brohi but failed. Eventually, Rafique was allowed to present his arguments. Not only did he win the case but his arguments impressed Justice Cornelius so much that the chief justice made him an advocate to the Supreme Court.
Rafique became widely known during the two-year rule of the emergency regime. He does not normally practise criminal law although he was top of the class in criminal law at Calcutta University in 1957. However, during the tenure of the interim government, he started moving criminal cases filed against the Awami League president, and now prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, and other political heavyweights.
He was widely acclaimed after securing a series of High Court orders and verdicts including bail and suspension of proceedings against high-profile politicians and businessmen. As amicus curiae, he secured a High Court verdict that observed that the court had the power to grant bail in cases under the emergency power rules.
Rafique had to move the criminal cases of the politicians during the emergency regime as ‘most of my friends who have name and fame as lawyers had either gone into hiding or did not dare to move the cases.’ Rafique did not face any threat from the emergency regime for moving the emergency cases, rather ‘the DGFI men used to send me gifts.’
‘Moving the cases of Hasina, I could pay my gratitude to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman...Similarly, I am lucky to defend Khaleda Zia,’ he says.
Rafique does not consider his legal battle against the emergency regime as a battle against the army as an institution. Against the backdrop of political turmoil, the army came to the scene on January 11, 2007 through the declaration of the state of emergency. The regime launched drive against graft. ‘But, some army officers broke records in corruption. They extorted businessmen. The army, as an institution, was, however, not involved. The army should bring those ambitious officers to book.’
The politicians, he believes, should take lesson from the sufferings they had to face during the emergency regime and institutionalise democracy.
Rafique recalls how his move during the emergency rule to bring Hasina and Khaleda across the table ‘in the interest of democracy and for an end to the culture of mudslinging between the two parties’ ran into resistance from within the political establishments.
Syed Ashraful Islam, then the AL spokesperson, pointing at Rafique, had said, ‘Politics is none of their business…They should not try to meddle in politics….’
Both Hasina and Khaleda agreed to sit together, Rafique says. ‘But Hasina phoned me from abroad after Ashraf’s comment and told me that she would consider the move after her return.’ Although his move was foiled, Rafique still thinks the two top leaders should sit together on every national issue.
He is also dissatisfied with the justice delivery system. He blames the emergency regime for the downfall of the judiciary. ‘During the regime, kangaroo courts were set up which were competing to jail people. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court had become “stay court” to halt the High Court orders that had given some respite to the people. The High Court, however, played a proactive role.’
He is also dissatisfied with the present scenario in the courts. ‘Today, the state attorneys, especially the attorney general, are threatening Supreme Court judges.’
A senior High Court judge, who is scheduled to deliver verdict in a case moved by Rafique, told him a few days back, ‘Do you think I would be allowed to deliver the verdict.’
‘If senior judges express such despondency, how can the judiciary run?’ he laments. ‘The state attorneys are acting not as the counsels for the state, but as the party activists. The lawyers, especially the state attorneys, also have the duty to ensure justice in the courts. I was also the attorney general and that too under Ershad. But, I never played the role the attorney general is now playing.’
Rafique was made attorney general in 1990. ‘Before assuming the office of the attorney general I had told Ershad that he must not give any illegal instruction to me. As attorney general, in many cases, I had argued that the government did wrong. During that period, only three detention orders were finally upheld by the High Court and the court had declared illegal the rest of the detention orders as I pleaded those were illegal.’
Rafique was an elected member of the executive committee on International Taxation of the World Association of Lawyers. He was also member of the world executive committee of Foreign Trade and Investment (Washington) and of the Bangladesh delegation to the UN General Assembly (1990).
He was a member of the National Commission on Money, Banking and Credit and chairman of the sub-committee on banking laws (1984) under the commission which drafted the current banking laws of Bangladesh, chairman of the corporate laws committee (1990), member of the company law reforms committee (1977) and member of the committee for improvement of the stock exchange market in Bangladesh.
During the era of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he drafted the laws on nationalisation. The same Rafique was asked by Ziaur Rahman to draft the laws on denationalisation. This time Rafique wrote the laws sitting in Bangabhaban and he used to go there through the backdoor.
Once Zia asked him, ‘You wrote the laws on nationalisation and again you wrote the laws on denationalisation…Do you not have any principle?’ Rafique replied, ‘I am a lawyer and I work for my client.’ He did not take any fees for drafting those laws on nationalisation and denationalisation.
Rafique hails from Subarnapur village under Barasat in West Bengal of India. ‘My family was a doctors’ family,’ he says.
His father Momenul Huq was a physician. His paternal uncle was the principal of Dhaka Medical College. One of his brothers is a physician.
Rafique had to became a barrister to marry, and that too, a doctor, Farida Huq, a renowned microbiologist. The marriage was settled at their early ages. His mother-in-law, Mrs Ameena Rahman, wife of the late Habibur Rahman, who was the owner of Paramount Press, had told him that he would have to become a barrister so that he could earn a lot of money.
Rafique had to do job in London to bear the costs of obtaining his bar-at law. He earned Tk 50 as fees for moving the first case in 1962. That was a civil case of some Sattar. He started earning a lot in 1968, when AK Brohi engaged him in a case at Tk 7,500 per day. With the money he earned from the case, Rafique built his house at Purana Paltan. Before building the house, he had been using the piece of land to cultivate paddy.
Since then, Rafique has earned a lot materialising the dream of his mother-in-law. He spends most of his earning in charities. Ameena Rahman recently died at ‘Ameena Rahman Coronary Care Unit’ at the BIRDEM Hospital. The CCU was set up in March 2009 after her name at a cost of Tk 1 crore, donated by Rafique.
His involvement in charitable works began in 1972, when he established the Dhaka Shishu Hospital. The hospital started operation in a tent at Dhanmondi. Later Sheikh Mujibur Rahman allotted a plot at Agargaon area, where the hospital is now situated. As Rafique refused to take any fees for drafting the laws on denationalisation, Ziaur Rahman gave Tk 50 lakh for the hospital and with the money the trust of the hospital was formed.
In 1986 he established Subarna Clinic at Chandra crossing in Gazipur for the poor. A family can get free medical treatment at the clinic with a health card to be obtained from the clinic at a cost of Tk 10 only.
He is the pioneer of the Ad-Din Women’s Medical College and Hospital at Moghbazar in Dhaka. He is life member and vice-chairman of the Diabetic Association of Bangladesh and member of its national council (since 1976), life member of the Bangladesh National Society for the Blind, chairman of Society for Education and Care of Hearing Impaired Children of Bangladesh, chairman of the Management Committee of BIRDEM Hospital and secretary general of the Management Board of Dhaka Shishu Hospital.
Rafique has also started construction of a 12-storey building at Ashulia for the establishment of a modern cancer hospital.
His only son Faheemul Huq is also a barrister. Faheem’s wife is a non-practising lawyer. ‘I have told my son that all my money will go to charities and he needs to earn for his family.’
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