[4] Kamal was born on 9 May 1933 in the village of Domar in Rangpur District of the Bengal Presidency in British India (now in Bangladesh).
He was named by the national poet of Bangladesh Kazi Nazrul Islam after the Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
[6] Kamal spent his early childhood in the village of Balarampur of Cooch Behar - a princely state during the British Raj and now a district of West Bengal, India.
[7] Justice Mustafa Kamal's formal education started in Cooch Behar's Jenkins School, when he got admitted in class three in 1940.
[7] Kamal had to return to his previous Cooch Behar school later in the same year for there was a communal riot in Kolkata in the month of August.
In August 1947, Abbasuddin Ahmed, Mustafa Kamal's father, opted to migrate to Dhaka – the capital of East Pakistan.
While he was studying for his M.Sc., Mr. Kamal joined the famed Lincoln's Inn (London, UK) and was called to the Bar in 1959.
[8] Having completed the Bar-at-Law course, Barrister Mustafa Kamal was called to the Bar from the Hon’ble Society of Lincoln's Inn (London, UK) in 1959.
He helped introduce Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Bangladesh serving as the overall coordinator of the Legal and Judicial Capacity Building Project (L&JCBP) of the World Bank.
The Government was given clear directions in order to complete the process of separation of the lower judiciary from the executive by undertaking steps, such as However, the implementation was being delayed; seemingly, there was a lack of political goodwill.
Justice Mustafa Kamal, after his retirement, continued to advocate the cause, and spoke boldly on the reluctance of the Executive to implement the directives of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
[11] Kamal felt the need of independence and autonomy of the judiciary even before 1995, when a group of judicial officers brought before the court the constitutional issue that led to the outcome of the Masdar Hossain case.
In 1994, Kamal was invited by the University of Dhaka to deliver the prestigious Kamini Kumar Dutta Memorial Law Lecture; he chose the topic ‘Bangladesh Constitution: Trends & Issues’.
[8] Barrister Manzoor Hasan, who was the founding executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), observed in 1997: "As TIB was advocating for improved governance, Justice Mustafa Kamal was exercising his judicial mind to call for an independent lower judiciary or redefining the limits of 'locus standi' in relation to writ applications.
Kamal's resolute stand in favour of the independence of the judiciary was evident in his first speech as the newly appointed Chief Justice of Bangladesh addressed to the members of the Supreme Court Bar Association on 1 June 1999.
24 of 1995), the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh took a firm stand on the modern liberal trend of Public Interest Litigation leaving aside the traditional view of locus standi.
[14]The implication of the judgment was that voluntary societies, representative organisations, trade unions and constitutional activists and individuals having no personal interest would now be able to test the validity of a law or an action of a public official affecting the general public by making the power of judicial review of the Supreme Court on their own standing.
In his judgment, Kamal expressed his complete disapproval of High Court judges' ignorance of basic Islamic knowledge, norms and philosophy.
He trained, for four years, mostly voluntarily, about fifteen hundred lawyers, judges and court officials in the principles and practice of different forms of ADR.