Law, Legal Consciousness, and the Postcolonial State: Reforming British Security, Penal, and Procedural Frameworks in Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh's postcolonial legal landscape does not have organic living law, which the British colonial legal order systematically pushed aside, reducing public legal awareness. This research examines four interrelated structural areas (philosophy of law culture, repressive colonial security laws, antiquated Victorian criminal statutes, and litigation bottlenecks) using a dual approach: theory and legal sociology on the one hand, and black-letter doctrinal analysis on the other. This article argues that the historical legislation such as the Police Act 1861, Criminal Tribes Act 1871, Penal Code 1860, and the Civil Procedure Code 1908 were deliberately designed to give the executive power, control over the population, and subjugate society. As a result, today's citizens view state institutions as being foreign, intrusive, and coercive and feel high levels of alienation from state institutions, high levels of backlog, and high levels of substantive gender discrimination. The results show that these distortions are deeply embedded in the text because of its postcolonial nature, and minor textual changes cannot correct them. Full decolonization will require an independent Legal Reform Commission, the incorporation of indigenous customs, harmonization of statutory provisions with international human rights standards, and the modernization of judicial administration to deliver constitutional justice.