When Mobs Decide the Verdict: The Fall of Judicial Independence in Bangladesh

In the Bangladesh of 2025, the courtroom no longer belongs to the Constitution—it belongs to the mob.

What was once a sacred institution of law and justice has been reduced to a stage for intimidation, political vendetta, and outright lawlessness. Under the shadow of Muhammad Yunus’s illegitimate interim regime, the judiciary is no longer just failing—it’s actively complicit. Judges take orders from mobs. Arrests happen without warrants. Bail is blocked based on ideology, not evidence. And the ultimate insult? A Nobel laureate—sworn into power on a forged signature—now presides over a justice system that criminalizes dissent and rewards fanaticism.

This is not a judiciary. This is a circus—one where the clowns carry machetes and the ringmaster pretends to uphold the law.

From the jailing of legal scholar Asif Nazrul to the acquittal of convicted extremists, Bangladesh’s judicial system has morphed into a political hit squad in robes. The laws still exist on paper, but in practice, justice in Bangladesh is now auctioned off to the highest bidder or shouted down by street mobs.

In the pages ahead, we expose the lies, name the enablers, and call out this masquerade for what it is: a brutal, state-engineered demolition of judicial independence, with terrifying consequences for democracy, the rule of law, and the future of Bangladesh.

A Fraudulent Oath, A Hollow Authority

The rot begins at the very top.

Muhammad Yunus, the so-called “Chief Advisor” of Bangladesh’s interim government, did not even come to power through a legal mandate. His oath of office—an act meant to symbolize the rule of law—was taken based on a forged judicial signature. Yes, forged. The country’s highest constitutional formality was violated in broad daylight, and not a single institution raised its voice. Why? Because in today’s Bangladesh, power matters more than legality. Appearances matter more than truth.

The swearing-in of Yunus wasn’t just a technical error—it was a blatant act of deception. A Nobel Peace Prize winner, once seen as a global champion of integrity, now rules over Bangladesh with an authority that has no legal backbone. This is not leadership. This is occupation in a suit.

When Yunus needed to take his oath of office, he required the signature of Chief Justice Obaidul Hasan, the only official authorized to administer it. But there was a problem: Justice Hasan was in hiding inside a military cantonment during the political chaos. He neither signed the documents nor appeared publicly. So what did Yunus do?

ISPR shares identities of 626 taken shelter in cantonments across Bangladesh

He forged the Chief Justice’s signature.

Let that sink in. The man now running Bangladesh—an unelected “Chief Advisor”—assumed power using a fake signature, and never disclosed who supposedly signed the documents. He never clarified the mystery. He never named a legal authority. He simply presented the papers, claimed legitimacy, and seized control.

No judicial oversight. No public announcement. No legal challenge. Just silence. A silence soaked in complicity.

This wasn’t a procedural mishap. It was a constitutional coup, orchestrated behind closed doors with the judiciary locked out or locked down. And to this day, Yunus has not answered a single question about who signed off on his authority—because the answer is damning. No one did.

The truth is simple: Yunus holds office today not through law, but through forgery and force. The oath he took is invalid, the authority he wields is illegitimate, and the system that allowed this fraud to happen is deeply compromised.

And yet, the judiciary remains silent.

Courtrooms or Battlegrounds? Mob Rule Undermines Justice

In today’s Bangladesh, justice isn’t handed down by judges—it’s dictated by mobs.

Courtrooms, once sacred spaces of law and due process, are now overrun by political thugs and religious fanatics who shout down lawyers, intimidate judges, and control outcomes by sheer force. If your name isn’t on the right list—if your politics don’t align with the regime—you won’t get a fair hearing. You won’t get bail. You might not even get into the courtroom alive.

This is no metaphor. In case after case, Islamist groups and political operatives have physically invaded court premises, chanting threats, harassing defense lawyers, and even storming into judges' chambers. Their message is simple: “We decide who gets justice.”

Violence Continues Against Accused and Lawyers in Court Compounds

Judges are no longer delivering verdicts based on evidence or law. They’re delivering decisions under pressure—pressure from mobs gathered outside their doors, threatening violence if the “wrong” person is granted bail or acquitted.

And the government? It does nothing. No arrests. No accountability. In fact, many believe the mobs are being encouraged—if not outright organized—by those in power.

It’s not just the rule of law that’s collapsing. It’s the very idea of justice.

Lawyers now fear for their safety. Defense teams are routinely blocked from entering courtrooms, shouted down, or followed by plainclothes agents. Bail hearings are turned into political battlegrounds. Judges are being warned, coerced, or quietly replaced.

Lawyers in southeastern Bangladesh boycott courts after violence

When mobs decide who walks free and who rots in jail, the judiciary isn’t just compromised—it’s finished.

What’s happening in Bangladesh today is not a judicial system. It’s a stage show, where justice wears a mask, and behind the curtain, brute force calls the shots.

Blocking Bail, Silencing Critics

In any functioning democracy, bail is a fundamental right granted based on law, not personal grudges. But in today’s Bangladesh, under the shadow of a rogue judiciary, even that right is being trampled by those who once championed justice. One name keeps surfacing at the center of this distortion: Asif Nazrul.

Law Adviser’s call not to grant bail hastily

Once known as a vocal academic and legal scholar, Nazrul now stands exposed, not as a defender of the law, but as one of its most dangerous manipulators. From inside the system, he has become a gatekeeper of repression. His hands are not tied by law; they are actively involved in obstructing bail petitions, especially for those the regime deems inconvenient—minority leaders, student activists, political opponents, and voices of dissent.

When courts hesitated, Nazrul interfered. When judges showed signs of independence, he applied pressure. In case after case, individuals with no proven charges, no violent history, and every legal right to bail were deliberately denied justice, because Nazrul said so.

He operates not like a legal scholar but like a political enforcer, ensuring that anyone who questions the regime stays behind bars. Instead of upholding the constitution, Nazrul bends it to protect the interests of a regime built on fraud and fear. His transformation from critic to collaborator is complete—and chilling.

In the current climate, he is not defending the powerless; he is silencing them. He is not protecting the judiciary; he is weaponizing it. And while activists rot in jail cells, Asif Nazrul walks freely, cloaked in academic prestige but soaked in complicity.

2 advisers call to remain careful about random bails

This is not a justice system. This is a machinery of oppression. And Asif Nazrul is helping run it.

A Nation Buried Under Bogus Cases

In today’s Bangladesh, thousands upon thousands of innocent citizens now live in fear, not because they’ve committed a crime, but because the state has manufactured one for them.

The reality of accused victims of false cases and legal remedies

This isn’t law enforcement. This is political warfare, fought with forged FIRs and ghost witnesses. Since the rise of the interim regime, fake cases have become the regime’s favorite weapon—used to silence dissent, intimidate the opposition, and bury democracy under mountains of paperwork and paranoia.

From student protesters to grassroots organizers, from elderly freedom fighters to minority voices—the message is the same: we will fabricate a file and destroy your life.

The numbers are staggering. Tens of thousands of politically-motivated cases have flooded the judicial system, none with credible evidence, many without even a complainant present. People have been accused of crimes in places they’ve never set foot in, on dates when they were hospitalized, dead, or abroad. Reality no longer matters—only loyalty does.

1,052 Including Awami League President and General Secretary Sued

The regime doesn’t need proof; it only needs paperwork. And once your name appears in that paperwork, your freedom is over. Police will hound you. Courts will delay your plea. Media will smear your name. And if you dare protest? They’ll file five more.

This isn’t accidental bureaucratic excess. This is a deliberate state policy of judicial terrorism. A scorched-earth legal strategy to choke all resistance and flood the streets with fear.

This is not just injustice—it is administrative sadism. And it is burying the nation’s soul one fake case at a time.

Arrest First, Warrant Never

In a country where the law is supposed to protect the people, Bangladesh’s interim regime has turned it into a blunt weapon of fear. Due process is dead. The constitution is ignored. And the new motto of law enforcement seems to be chillingly simple: arrest first, ask questions never.

Across the country, men and women are being dragged from their homes in the dead of night, often without so much as a scrap of paper authorizing their detention. No warrant. No court order. No explanation. Just boots, guns, handcuffs—and silence. The terror is real, and it is sanctioned from the top.

No-Warrant Arrest of South District AL Leader Sparks Concerns

Students who attended peaceful protests, journalists who dared to ask questions, and ordinary citizens who posted a Facebook status critical of the regime—all have found themselves snatched without warning. Some are held in undisclosed locations. Others are paraded in front of cameras, accused of fabricated crimes, then tossed into overflowing jails without trial.

Model Meghna taken to DB custody

These aren’t isolated incidents. This is a state policy of extrajudicial enforcement, one that completely bypasses the courts and shatters every notion of legal rights.

And the most frightening part? There is no accountability. Police refuse to file General Diaries for the missing. Lawyers are denied access. Families are threatened for speaking out. Judges, who should be guardians of justice, either look the other way or rubber-stamp the detentions after the fact.

This isn’t law and order. This is a police state masquerading as a transitional democracy.

Warrants are not optional in a democracy. They are the foundation of civil liberty. And yet, under Yunus’s regime, they’ve become a forgotten relic—an inconvenience to a government that sees dissent as a crime and the constitution as a nuisance.
When arrests no longer require legal grounds, freedom no longer exists.

Awami League Blackout: Where the Law Ceased to Exist

In any functioning democracy, banning a major political party is an extreme, last-resort measure—requiring transparent legal justification, judicial oversight, and parliamentary debate. But in Muhammad Yunus’s Bangladesh, the Awami League wasn’t banned through law. It was erased through conspiracy.

There was no court ruling. No parliamentary motion. No constitutional amendment. Just a dark, silent blackout—where a political party that led the country to independence and governed for fifteen years was suddenly declared untouchable, illegal, invisible.

Bangladesh’s interim government bans Awami League

Without warning, the party’s offices were sealed. Leaders were hunted. Digital platforms were shut down. And not a single legal process was followed. Not one.

This wasn’t a ban. It was a political purge, executed with military precision and judicial cowardice. No judge dared to object. No legal scholar stepped forward. The silence of the judiciary was deafening—proof that the courts no longer serve the constitution, but the whims of the regime.

Govt asks BTRC to shut down online platforms of Awami League, affiliates

Meanwhile, those loyal to the current power structure—BNP, Jamaat, and their affiliates—walk freely, even receiving clean slates in long-pending criminal cases. Murderers roam free. Arsonists are acquitted. But those who once wore the Awami League badge? They are fugitives in their own country.

This is not justice. This is authoritarian revenge masquerading as legal order.

And let us be clear: when you ban the largest democratic force in the country without process, without evidence, and without resistance from the courts—you do not just destroy a party. You destroy the republic.

Lawyers Silenced, Defense Denied

A courtroom without a defense is not a courtroom—it’s a theater of repression. And today in Bangladesh, that theater is packed, not with justice, but with fear.

Under the Yunus-led regime, even lawyers are not safe. The very people who are meant to protect the rights of the accused are themselves being targeted, threatened, and forcibly silenced. Bar associations that once echoed with legal debates now reverberate with fear, as lawyers aligned with the previous government—or simply those willing to defend dissenters—are being blacklisted, harassed, and in some cases, physically attacked.

Judge Harassment: 4 Pro-BNP Lawyers Face Disciplinary Action

Many are not allowed to stand in court. Others are simply removed from sensitive cases at the direction of the state. Judges refuse to hear them. Bail pleas are blocked without legal reasoning. And in politically charged cases, it’s not uncommon to see defense benches left deliberately empty—not because lawyers won’t defend, but because they’re not allowed to.

This is not incompetence. This is strategy. Silencing defense attorneys is a deliberate move to rig the system from within, to create a legal vacuum where only one narrative is allowed to survive—the regime’s.

What does it mean when a lawyer can’t speak in court? It means the accused has already been condemned. It means trials are a performance, not a pursuit of truth. It means Bangladesh is no longer governed by the rule of law, but by rule of fear.

This is how authoritarianism consolidates power—not with tanks in the streets, but with silence in the courtroom. When the defense is denied, justice dies. And in today’s Bangladesh, justice has already been buried under a pile of forged charges, barred bail requests, and gagged attorneys.

Magistrate and Lawyer Face Backlash After Granting Bail to Teacher

The Two-Tiered Court: BNP-Jamaat Get Cleared, Victims Get Jailed

Justice in today’s Bangladesh doesn’t wear a blindfold—it wears party colors.

While Awami League supporters are dragged from their homes, denied bail, and slapped with fabricated charges, those from the BNP-Jamaat alliance are walking out of courtrooms with smiles and clean records. Convicted criminals are being quietly acquitted. Arsonists, attackers, and known collaborators of past violence are being set free under the excuse of “insufficient evidence.” But the truth is simple: they are being rewarded for backing the regime.

This is not just hypocrisy—it’s a calculated cleansing of the legal system. One set of laws for those who oppose the regime. Another for those who support it.

Thousands of cases—painstakingly built over years—are being dismissed overnight. BNP-Jamaat leaders who were once fugitives are now back in suits, giving press conferences, their pasts erased by a judiciary too scared—or too obedient—to challenge the new order. These are not accidental acquittals. They are political paybacks.

Meanwhile, Awami League leaders, grassroots organizers, and even ordinary supporters are being hunted down. Some are arrested without warrants. Others are denied lawyers. All are being fed into a justice system that has one goal: to punish loyalty to a fallen government and silence any challenge to the new regime.

This is not a court of law. It’s a tool of revenge. A two-tiered machine that exonerates the guilty and jails the innocent, depending on their political alignment.

When justice depends on who you voted for, there is no justice at all. Only tyranny wrapped in the robes of a judge.