Professor Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission

He calls it his arithmetic dream: to build a team of skilled and committed lawyers who will advocate on behalf of the poor and marginalised of Bangladesh.

It is a vision that Professor Mizanur Rahman, the recently appointed Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, has been helping bring to life through a career as a law teacher spanning nearly thirty years.

A proponent of “rebellious lawyering”, he has established a number of innovative programs to take his students outside the walls of the University of Dhaka to see how the law can be used as a tool for social change.

“As part of the street law program we set up in the early 1990s, our students went to the slums to talk with people living there, they went to the garment factories and they went to the local schools in the city,” says Prof Rahman.

“Through this direct interaction with people, they came face to face with many injustices. And so the question naturally arises: how can you go about fostering change?”

Prof Rahman’s response was to develop an intensive, two-week summer school program teaching students human rights jurisprudence and advocacy.

“The summer school trains 50 people each year,” he says. “If only a dozen continue to work in the field, then after ten years we will have a pool of around 120 lawyers advocating on behalf of the poor and making change through common law cases decided by the courts.

“Over time, this will have a profound impact on the way the courts function and the way justice is delivered to the people. This is the transformation that I hope to see happen.”

In recognition of his efforts, Prof Rahman was presented with the ‘Professor N.R. Madhava Menon Best Law Teacher in the SAARC Region Award’ for 2010.

“It was definitely a great honour,” he says. “But it also inspires you to go further and deepens your commitment to the goal of promoting change and addressing injustice.”

Building credibility

Appointed in June 2010 to lead the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for three years, Prof Rahman says this new position provides him with an opportunity to build on his work and “address some of the pressing issues facing people and communities in Bangladesh.”

“One of the first things I did after being appointed was to meet with the Chief of the Paramilitary Forces and the Chief of Police in Dhaka and I conveyed to them a very strong message: we are not going to tolerate any violation of human rights, like extrajudicial killing or enforced disappearances,” he recalls.

That message appears to have been taken seriously by the authorities, with Prof Rahman noting a marked drop in the number of extrajudicial killings in recent months.

There are a number of other pressing issues to tackle, he notes, including custodial deaths, religious freedom and violence against ethnic communities

However, he says his first priority is to “establish the NHRC as an independent, effective and credible institution.”

“We are still only a very young institution. Until and unless people take you seriously and listen to what you are saying, you won’t be able to create meaningful change on the issues that matter.

“To achieve this we need to build knowledge and skills in key parts of our work, like conducting investigations, handling complaints and building up our research capacity.”

A five-year agreement signed with the United Nations Development Programme last year will provide the NHRC with valuable technical assistance, however Prof Rahman says he also hopes to learn from other national human rights institutions in the Asia Pacific region.

“We are yet to fully appreciate how a national human rights commission should function and where we can best devote our efforts. This is where more mature institutions in the region can provide us with practical advice and guidance.”

Optimism

According to Prof Rahman, the NHRC faces a number of challenges in its work. These include the constraints of a small staff and a legislative mandate that allows the NHRC to only make recommendations to government in relation to human rights violations.

However, with a five-year strategic plan to be presented to the government at the end of March 2011, he remains optimistic about the potential impact of the NHRC in the period ahead.

“You cannot begin your journey as a pessimist. You are obliged to try all possible means to accomplish the goals that you have set for yourself,” he says.

“If we can develop the Commission into a respected and credible institution, that will make it hard for the Government or any other institution to ignore our recommendations.”

He also says that he is prepared to confront criticism and take a determined stand to promote and protect human rights standards in Bangladesh.

“I am not a person who is going to simply listen to what the Government says. I am the last person to be of that nature.”

The International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions will consider the application for accreditation of the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission at the next meeting of its Sub-Committee on Accreditation in May 2011.