Fatal flaws: Poor legal representation driving unsafe and unjust death sentences in Bangladesh

New research, commissioned by The Death Penalty Project and conducted by the University of Dhaka, exposes systemic failures in the effectiveness and quality of legal representation in capital cases – meaning unjust, unsafe and potentially irreversible outcomes are inevitable for those facing the death penalty in Bangladesh. 

The right to effective legal representation is a cornerstone of a fair criminal justice system. Nowhere is this right more critical than in cases where the death penalty is on the table: inadequate representation can lead to irreversible miscarriages of justice. 

More than 2,600 people are living under sentence of death in Bangladesh, one of the highest known death row populations in the world. Hundreds of death sentences continue to be imposed each year.  

Both the Constitution and Bangladesh’s international treaty obligations are unequivocal that there is an absolute right to effective state-funded legal representation in capital cases. Despite this, new research commissioned by The Death Penalty Project and authored by Professor Muhammad Mahbubur Rahman and Rafid Azad Saumik at the Centre for Advanced Legal Studies (CALS), University of Dhaka, reveals that the quality of legal representation in Bangladesh routinely falls short of the standards required in a capital case.  

Drawing on interviews with individuals with lived experience of death row and their family members, alongside legal practitioners and civil society experts, the study examines the quality of representation provided by private lawyers, state defence lawyers and legal aid lawyers, in trial courts and appeal proceedings of the Supreme Court.

The findings 

I think there are two main issues. One is of course the insufficient remuneration. The other is that the reputed lawyers often do not want to take these cases as they think taking these cases would damage their reputation. This is because there is unfortunately a negative image about state defence lawyers and legal aid lawyers.

A prominent criminal lawyer in Bangladesh, interviewed in the research. 

The research identifies serious structural gaps that compromise the effectiveness of legal representation in capital cases, including: 

• Grossly inadequate compensation for state-funded legal representation. Exceedingly low fees are disincentivising lawyers from taking on or prioritising capital cases. 

• Poor client-lawyer communication. Whether due to a lack of time or low remuneration, state-funded lawyers hardly ever meet their clients in prison. It is not unusual for clients to have their first interaction with their legal representatives on the day of their trial. Families typically do not have the resources to travel to meet with lawyers. 

• An acute shortage of suitably experienced lawyers, particularly at trial stage. This could be driven both by poor compensation, but also as death penalty cases, due to their gravity, often attract significant public attention and politicisation. Lawyers are therefore reluctant to take on these cases due to the risk of harassment. 

• A pattern of delayed appointment of legal representation. In almost all cases involving state defence lawyers, the lawyer was only appointed during the hearing stage. This is a deeply concerning trend in a system where torture, forced confessions and corrupt practices are common during the immediate period of detention after arrest.  

The implications are stark. In Bangladesh, those who cannot afford private lawyers are more likely to receive poor quality representation and face unjust outcomes. This means economically disadvantaged people are far more likely to end up on death row, and to be wrongfully convicted. 

As a clear violation of fair trial rights, these findings render the death penalty system inevitably arbitrary and discriminatory. 

Another fatal flaw in a broken criminal justice system 

Existing research has already confirmed that Bangladesh’s justice system is chronically under resourced. Forced confessions are relied on as evidence in capital cases, wrongful convictions are commonplace and the experience of prolonged detention and solitary confinement on death row brings about intense and long-lasting psychological, social and emotional damage. 

This new research builds on a previous study of the death row population published in 2020 with CALS and The Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, which found that: 

• Death row is predominantly populated by young men. None of the individuals interviewed in the study had been convicted of a crime before. 

• All of those interviewed came from low-income backgrounds: 72% were classified as ‘economically vulnerable’. More than half were in low paid work or unemployed. 

• A third of family members interviewed in the study alleged that their family member had been tortured in custody. 

I hope even my enemies do not go through such misfortunes… He was harmed physically, mentally, financially – in every possible way, and was a victim of conspiracy, too.

A brother of a person on death row, interviewed in the 2020 study. 

The documentary photography of artist and anthropologist Mosfiqur Rahman Johan has further exposed the harrowing experiences of people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Bangladesh. 

Together, this evidence shows that unconscionable delays, torture and inequality plague the criminal justice system and undermine the rule of law. These critical issues must be addressed through urgent reforms. 

What now for the new government? 

This study comes at a critical moment for Bangladesh, where the newly elected government and demands for accountability are at the forefront of the public conversation. Its implications are clear: the new administration must not accept the failings of the criminal justice system it has inherited. As a starting point, the report calls for urgent reforms, including: 

• Stronger training and qualification standards for lawyers; 

• Fairer compensation, with dedicated fees for capital cases; 

• Guaranteed early and effective access to legal representation; 

• Protection of the presumption of innocence, particularly in high-profile cases; and 

• An urgent review of the continued use of the death penalty. 

Current discourse about the death penalty in Bangladesh is focused on holding former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her allies to account for state violence and human rights abuses. 

But to debate capital punishment only within the context of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal ignores the thousands of individuals sentenced to death and languishing in condemned cells around the country who are not from the ruling class, but instead disproportionately poor and marginalised. These people have also experienced human rights abuses and forms of state violence. 

Justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of gross human rights abuses is essential. But these reckonings cannot stop at the prison gates. To ignore those on death row and allow the death penalty regime to persist under these conditions is to risk replicating the very brutality and injustice the new administration seeks to address. 

The Death Penalty Project calls on Bangladesh’s government to initiate an urgent Commission of Inquiry to examine and report on all aspects of capital punishment and to declare an official moratorium on executions.