Appellate Division Justice Obaidul Hasan has been appointed as the 24th Chief Justice of the country. According to the order of the President, the Secretary of the Ministry of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs, The information was disclosed on Tuesday (September 12) in a notification signed by Golam Sarwar.
It says, ‘By virtue of Article 95(1) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, His Excellency the President has appointed Justice Obaidul Hasan of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh as the 24th Chief Justice of Bangladesh.’It further states, ‘By order of the President, this appointment shall be effective from the date of taking oath.’
Earlier on Monday (September 11), in a notification from the Ministry of Law, Justice Obaidul Hasan was given the duty of Acting Chief Justice.
In a related notification, it is said that Chief Justice Hasan Faiz Siddiqui will be out of the country from Monday, September 11 to September 18. Senior Justice Obaidul Hasan of the Appellate Division will serve as Acting Chief Justice during this period.
Justice Obaidul Hasan obtained his BSS, MSS, and LLB degrees from Dhaka University and obtained his district bar certificate as a lawyer in 1986. In 1988, he was enrolled as a lawyer in the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and in 2005, he was enrolled as a lawyer in the Appellate Division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court.
He served as Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General for five years, from 1996–2001. He joined the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh as an Additional Judge on June 30, 2009, and was appointed as a Permanent Judge in the same division on June 6, 2011.
He joined the International Criminal Tribunal-II on March 25, 2012, as a member of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Trial of Organized Crimes Against Humanity during the War of Liberation. He was appointed Chairman of the Tribunal on December 13, 2012, and served until September 15, 2015. During his tenure at International Criminal Tribunal-II, 11 cases were adjudicated.
He was appointed as a judge in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on September 3, 2020.
24th Chief Justice Obaidul Hasan participated in an international conference held in Hong Kong in 1991. Attended a law conference in Singapore in August 2015 and led the Bangladesh delegation to a conference on international crime in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Also, in late August 2015, he attended an exchange meeting with the judges of the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal, the then Yugoslavia, in The Hague, Netherlands.
He has authored two books titled ‘Pictures of Indescribable Cruelty: Intellectual Murders of 1971 and Others’ and ‘Bangabandhu Bangladesh: Story of a War Child and Others.
