Equality before the Law and Non-discrimination: Article 27 of the Constitution says that all citizens are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection of the law. Article 28 spells out the principle of non-discrimination in the following words: “[…] the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.” These provisions in the Constitution reflects Article 2 of the ICCPR that provides that State parties undertake to respect and ensure to all individuals within its territory the rights recognised in the Covenant without discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. The grounds spelt out in the ICCPR are more expansive than that in the Constitution. For example, ‘national origin’ is not necessarily covered by ‘place of birth,’ nor is ‘language’ mentioned in the Constitution as ground for discrimination. The Constitution does not mention political discrimination either.57 The list of grounds in the ICCPR is theoretically left open. The phrase – ‘such as’ – indicates that one can add to the list of possible grounds as long as they are consistent with the others. The list in the Constitution is exhaustive, but the classification made by the Parliament in its legislation has 57 See, anonymous, “Comparison between the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Constitution of Bangladesh,” in Human Rights in Bangladesh: A Study of Standards and Practices (Dhaka: BILIA, 2001), 17–18. 58 Ibid, 18. 48