Why the International Crimes Tribunal’s mandate must be protected

The most dangerous misuse of a justice system begins with the filing of a complaint that should never have entered the system in the first place—a problem that now confronts the International Crimes Tribunal. When personal disputes, local feuds, ordinary criminal allegations, and politically convenient accusations are dressed up as crimes against humanity, they corrode the legal discipline, institutional capacity, and public legitimacy on which accountability is dependent.

According to a recent report by The Daily Star, the ICT investigation agency has received 560 complaints since August 5, 2024, of which 40 have already been found to be beyond the tribunal’s jurisdiction after preliminary inquiry. The percentage may appear modest, but every inadmissible complaint still has to be read, assessed, checked and, in some cases, followed up on through field visits and witness interviews. A complaint that goes nowhere thus consumes the most valuable resource any justice system has: trained attention.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

The ICT is not an all-purpose grievance forum. Under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, its function is to try offences of exceptional gravity, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In international criminal law, “crime against humanity” is not a rhetorical upgrade for any serious wrong, but a term of art. The Rome Statute formulation, while not controlling Bangladesh’s domestic law, captures the central idea: such crimes require a connection to a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. This threshold separates atrocity law from ordinary criminal law.

Undoubtedly, a rape allegation, a murder allegation, a instance of land grabbing, an attack by a rival group, or a politically motivated assault deserve swift investigation and trial, but before the proper forum. Gravity alone does not make an offence a crime against humanity. To collapse that distinction is to convert a specialised tribunal into a dumping ground for every failure of the ordinary criminal justice system. It also cheapens the language of atrocity by using it as a legal slogan rather than a jurisdictional category.

The damage is aggravated by the wider culture of irresponsible case filing. A recent explosives case in Barishal, for example, named four deceased Awami League leaders as accused, alleging that they took part in events years after their deaths. That was not an ICT case, but it illustrates the same institutional disease. When accused lists can include the dead, the imprisoned, or persons inserted for political convenience, the process ceases to begins to resemble bureaucratised vengeance rather than accountability. Such cases not only harm those falsely accused, but also poison the evidentiary environment for genuine victims.

Bangladesh’s justice system already suffers from delays and overburdening, as the law minister noted in parliament recently: over 46 lakh cases are pending across all levels of Bangladesh’s judiciary as of March 31, 2026. When an atrocity-focused tribunal spends time separating jurisdictionally meaningful allegations from private vendettas, cases are delayed, and victims of enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killing, mass violence, or systematic repression suffer because delays erode memory, weaken evidence, exhaust witnesses, and reward those with the means to wait out the process.

Fairness also suffers because, in Bangladesh, accusation itself too often results in punishment. A baseless criminal complaint can spell risk of arrest, reputational damage, professional loss, and years of legal harassment. For the complainant with a genuine claim, the flood of dubious complaints creates suspicion around everyone. The cynical filer and the confused complainant both make it easier for powerful accused persons to dismiss serious allegations as politically manufactured. This is how abuse of process protects actual perpetrators.

Given that the tribunal is operating in a politically charged environment, handling matters connected to the July uprising, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, the former government’s crackdown and war crimes from 1971, the ICT’s legitimacy is also at stake. Rather than resorting to expansive rhetoric, the tribunal should instead display disciplined jurisdictional control, rigorous evidence evaluation, equal procedural fairness, and visible resistance to political abuse to protect its credibility. If it becomes known as a forum where any dispute may be repackaged as an atrocity, even meritorious prosecutions will suffer from institutional contamination.

The state can either treat the misuse of complaints as an administrative nuisance or acknowledge it as a rule of law problem. The latter is the only defensible course. However, the solution should not be frightening citizens—who may not understand the tribunal’s mandate—away from the ICT. Some of them may be traumatised victims searching for a forum that will listen. Others may have been failed by police stations, local courts, or political authorities. Therefore, punishing every legally mistaken complaint would be unjust and counterproductive. A line must be drawn between good-faith error and bad-faith manipulation.

The prosecution and investigation agency should adopt a sharper front-end filter. A standard complaint form should require the complainant to identify not only the alleged act but also the contextual elements that bring it within the ICT’s mandate: civilian population targeted, widespread or systematic nature of the attack, the policy or pattern alleged, the connection between the accused and the larger attack, and the supporting material available. Complaints that only narrate private disputes or isolated offences should be promptly rejected or referred to the ordinary criminal justice system.

The tribunal and/or the prosecution office may also consider publishing clear public guidance in Bangla and English, using plain examples of what may and may not amount to crimes against humanity. Public misunderstanding is often the result of institutional miscommunication. Only informing people that the ICT deals with grave crimes may lead many to believe that any wrong they perceive as being “grave” belongs under its jurisdiction. Therefore, the public must be told that atrocity crimes require a legal context beyond individual wrongdoing.

To deal with deliberate fabrication, courts and prosecutors should use existing powers to initiate action where complainants knowingly submit false material, name impossible accused persons, conceal exculpatory facts, or use case filing as extortion. Such action must be careful, evidence-based, and real.

The ordinary criminal justice system also needs reform as misuse of the ICT is partly a symptom of public distrust elsewhere. If police investigations are perceived as politicised, slow, or purchasable, citizens and political actors will search for more dramatic forums. Strengthening magistracy scrutiny, penalising false complaints, improving police accountability, and ensuring early judicial review of mass accused lists should form the foundation of ICT reform.

Bangladesh needs accountability for the gravest crimes, but it also needs protection against the weaponisation of criminal processes. A tribunal that filters out abuse, rejects jurisdictional exaggeration, and punishes fabricated allegations will be more credible for citizens.

Barrister Khan Khalid Adnan is advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, fellow at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and head of the chamber at Khan Saifur Rahman and Associates in Dhaka.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries, and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.