CHAPTER: 01 Background and Functions Though the concept and ideals of human rights were well incorporated into the Constitution of Bangladesh in 1972 it took quite a long time to come up with the first initiative to form a national Commission for promoting and protecting human rights in the country. It was by the present government that they first felt the necessity of creating an aura of human rights and establishing a rule of law in the country removing the culture of impunity upheld by the previous rulers after their epoch-making political rise-up in 1996. Achieving a hard-earned and glorious victory in the national election the new government was burdened with numerous initiatives regarding restoration of democracy, bringing the war-criminals under trial, reforming the systems and machineries and reconstructing many projects and programs for advancing the country towards development. Moreover, the government became mindful to create a paradigm towards establishing a broad-based human rights culture in the society. And accordingly, with the help of UNDP a draft-legislation was made in 1998 with a view to forming a Commission. But the legacy of dillydallying and zigzagging of the previous regime was still prevailing; and, therefore, the issue remained pending and under consideration for a long time. At last a Commission came into being on 1st September 2008 with the promulgation of National Human Rights Commission Ordinance 2007. A three-member Commission started working on 1st December, 2008. But as a matter of fact the National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh assumes a full-fledged shape and comes into people’s sight after the enactment of the National Human rights Commission Act-2009. The legislation enables NHRCB to start functioning in its full force on June 2010. The second Commission under the spell of the NHRC Act 2009 works for two terms until June 2016. The present one is literally the fourth Commission that commences its journey on 02 Aug 2016. It is composed of a Chairman, a Full-time Member and five other honorary Members. 1.1 Mandates The National Human Rights Commission is legally mandated to work extensively with the prime objective of establishing human rights in the country. The Commission needs to intervene into quite a lot of aspects including examining human rights situation of the country, legal system, national and international policies and conventions on human rights etc. And that is why the Commission’s mandates are extensive. The chief mandates of the Commission may be categorized as mentioned below: Keeping Vigilance on HR Violation Handling Complaint on HR Violation Providing Counseling & Legal Aid to Victims & Vulnerable Groups Awareness Building & Advocacy on HR Research & Publication on HR Issues Partnership Recommendations on different HR Issues Partnership, Collaboration, Networking & Bridging with CSOs, CBOs, NGOs, HRDs etc. International Reporting & Coordination Annual Report-2018 13