Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Nayeb-e-Ameer Dr Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher has said that his party will not sign the July Charter unless it is given a legal foundation.He said there is no guarantee that an elected government will turn it into law, which is why necessary measures must be taken immediately.He made these comments during a media briefing on Thursday, during the 23rd day of the second round of meetings between political parties and the National Consensus Commission held at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka.

Referring to BNP’s position, Dr Taher said: “They are saying they will give it a legal basis in parliament, but how credible is that? We have seen examples before. No government in the past 54 years has upheld its pledges. Therefore, we believe that if it is not turned into law now, all our efforts, movement, and time spent will amount to nothing. That is why we have said that if necessary, more discussions should be held and a final decision reached.”

In response to a question about whether the implementation of the charter will face a crisis if Jamaat does not sign it, he said: “If there is no legal recognition, then whether we sign or not makes no difference. A crisis is inevitable.”

He asked: “What is the obstacle to giving legal recognition? Those who say there is no scope are spreading confusion.”

He further said that the majority of parties support following constitutional procedures when appointing statutory institutions, while BNP and a few others initially opposed it. However, in the end, they even agreed by giving notes of dissent. The commission has now given a final decision to include such appointments in the constitution.

On the issue of the upper house of parliament, Dr Taher said: “We want full proportional representation in both the upper and lower houses, based on the votes each political party receives. In recent times, there has been no participatory voting. Votes were cast at night, and as a result, acceptable candidates were not elected. Many countries already follow the PR system, and we believe there is no reason not to implement it here.”