Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed was born on December 28, 1958. His father Late Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed was a prominent jurist and an attorney general of Bangladesh. His mother Late National Professor Dr Sufia Ahmed was the first female national professor, a language hero, Ekushey Padak recipient, and the chairperson of the Department of Islamic History and Culture at Dhaka University.
Justice Refaat Ahmed obtained LLB (Hons) (First Class, First in order of merit), from University of Dhaka, BA in Jurisprudence and MA from Wadham College, University of Oxford, UK, MA in Law and Diplomacy and PhD from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA.
Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed was Ford Foundation Fellow in Public International Law at The Fletcher School.
He was enrolled as an Advocate of the District Court, the High Court Division and the Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court in 1984, 1986 and 2002 respectively.
Justice Syed Refaat was elevated as Additional Judge of the High Court Division on April 27, 2003, and was appointed Judge of the same Division on April 27, 2005.
He has a number of publications to his credit and lectures as invited speaker extensively at home and abroad. His 2020 publication Digital Footprints: A Rights-Based Perspective has been published by the Bangladesh IP Forum/ Bangladesh Intellectual Property Academy (BIPA).
Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed's current research interest is focused on the rule of law within the Bangladeshi constitutional scheme and his write-up has appeared in a 2024 Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group, UK publication "A History of the Constitution of Bangladesh: The Founding, Development, and Way Ahead".
He has previously worked as a Lawyer in the City of London and with the UNHCR in Hong Kong and Washington, D. C. Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed is a founder member of Global Judicial Institute on the Environment, Brazil. He was instrumental in organizing the 2016 South Asia Judicial Conference on Environment and Climate Change, a milestone event held under the aegis of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank.
He participated in international roundtables, workshops, conferences, study tours and courses held in UK, Germany, Malaysia, The Philippines, India, Nepal, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, USA, Brazil, Myanmar and Bahrain. He notably spoke in November, 2021 as Distinguished Expert Speaker on the topic "Criminalizing Humanitarian Action- A Judicial Perspective" at a conference co-hosted by the School of Law, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China and ICRC Regional Delegation for East Asia.
Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed visited Brazil, the USA, the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, The Vatican City State, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Macau, Hong Kong and The Philippines.
He was sworn in as the 25th Chief Justice of Bangladesh on August 11, 2024.
