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VOL. 28, NO. 21, Feb 05, 2009 (Magh 23 2065 B.S.) |
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Meeting Schedule
Fourteen committees in the Constituent Assembly (CA), which were constituted to prepare draft on various issues to be included in the new constitution like form of government, nature and structure of state, fundamental rights, model of judiciary, power and resource sharing, are in a hectic schedule locked in series of meetings. They give the indication that drafting a new constitution on prescribed schedule is not going to be a problem. As Nepal does not lack expertise to draft a new constitution, the constitution can be promulgated as per the schedule of CA or between April 29 to 28 May, 2010. However, given Nepal's constitutional experiments in the past six decades, the question is: will it last?
By KESHBA POUDEL
"There is a need to promulgate a new constitution to meet the realities of Nepal. We will formulate the new constitution to suit Nepal's environment," said former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala. "Although Maoists are making efforts to prolong the present situation, we will foil such move."
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CA Members Discussing on Constitution: Hard task |
"Although one can see difference of opinion on various chapters of the new constitution, we will hand over a draft of new constitution on schedule given to us," said Madhav Kumar Nepal, CPN-UML leader and chairman of the Constitution Committee, a main committee to draft the constitution.
"After collections of suggestions from various committees, we will begin writing of constitution with smaller group of expert," said Nepal.
"I am confident that the new constitution will be promulgated next year. Despite certain political differences over structural issues, there is consensus among all political parties, civil society to promulgate the constitution on time," said Subas Nembang, chairman of Constituent Assembly. "Nobody needs to worry about the promulgation of new constitution."
As fourteen committees formed by the CA are working in hectic manner to collect the opinions and finalize the concept paper, there are abundant indications that the new constitution will be promulgated on schedule.
However, nobody can predict how long the new constitution drafted by the committee, placing the country for such a long time in transition will last.
"The constitutions are not drafted for long time to come as constitutions change in accordance with the time and new wishes of people. I cannot guarantee that the new constitution will also last forever. As the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal 1990 lasted for 15 years, the new Constitution may last for another two decades," admitted Nepal in the meeting of CA.
Like Nepal, others, too, hold similar views. "If the new constitution fails to address our demand for people's republic, we will launch another decisive phase of violent war," said finance minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai. "We will not accept constitution prepared to promote feudalism."
Will The New Constitution Last?
At a time when most of the political leaders are the same who were in the leadership when the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal 1990 was promulgated and under whose agitation the constitution was put into the dustbin, no one can expect that the new constitution will also last for long.
"They are not sincere towards previous commitments. How can we expect that they will abide by the new one in future? If political leaders don't have sincerity and commitments, the constitution will be doomed to die," said a political analyst. "Problem with us is not making a constitution but what is lacking is sincerity and commitment. One after another, six constitutions have been promulgated and experimented in the last six decades. Now in the context of growing expectations and limited economic capabilities to deal with them, several constitutions may be scrapped out like in the past."
Although there are many disputable issues like structure of state, forms of government and political systems in constitution making, the confidence expressed by Koirala, Nepal and Nemwang regarding the draft indicate that new constitution will be promulgated on the time frame announced by Constituent Assembly.
"Somehow this CA may come out with a constitution without any major debate in the house as was done during the abolition of monarchy when almost all political parties except one issued a strong whip to vote for the resolution. It may not be a wonder if the same procedure is adopted to promulgate a new constitution. But, the big question is: the adherence for it, respect and regard for it," said the political analyst. "As we have seen recently in USA's presidential oath taking occasion, the president took oath second time just because the word order was not as in the constitution."
Although the Constitution of America is more than two hundred years old, people and politicians have everlasting respect and regard for it.
Thus, it is not a question of making constitution but making it last. In South Asia, India has been practicing the same constitution for over sixty years. Even Pakistan has the same constitution despite the change of forms of government from military to civilian and the constitution as a basic law has not changed much. Compared to India, Pakistan remains unstable. Compared to all South Asian countries, Nepal is very vulnerable.
"Problem with us is not in making a constitution but maintaining it. Nepal does not lack expertise in drafting a constitution. The experiences of drafting numerous laws, by-laws every year has made sure there are sufficient experts to do that. Concept of constitutional law as concept of constitutional law is also not new to us. The biggest problem is to preserve it. One after another six constitutions were declared and experimented and now in the context of rising expectations and limited capability to deal with that several more constitution may be scrapped out one after another as we have the experiences of the past."
CA Schedule
According to the Constituent Assembly, the schedule came into effect from 16 November 2008 for the remaining period of 18 and half months, or 82 weeks after deducting five and a half month from the date of the first meeting of the CA.
As per the schedule, the formation and election of the chair person of CA has already been completed and the committees have identified experts and prepared the detail terms of reference to them.
As per the schedule, 9 weeks from 30 December 2008 to 12 February 2009, the committees are holding extensive discussions and consultations on the concept of the new constitution and collecting suggestions (and opinions) from members of the civil society, experts and the general public.
After this round of discussions, eight weeks (from 26 February to 23 April 2009) is given to prepare the Thematic Committees to prepare the preliminary draft of the constitution on the basis of their concept papers. The committees shall prepare the preliminary draft by focusing on the themes related to their jurisdiction and submit them to the constitutional committee.
In another eight weeks (24 April to 14 June 2009), the concept paper and preliminary draft will be prepared by the Thematic Committees and shall be discussed in the Constituent Assembly.
After tabling the report on the concept papers and preliminary draft of all the committees in the plenary session, they will hold the discussions over it, approve it with recommendations, if any, and send it to the Constitutional Committee.
After this discussion, the constitutional committee shall prepare the first draft of the new constitution by integrating the recommendations of the CA and the draft submitted by the Thematic Committees. Eight weeks between 15 June to 9 August, 2009 is allotted for this. This is the responsibility of the Constitutional Committee. This shall be done confidentially. In the meantime, the 6th session of the Legislature Parliament will be summoned. It will pass the policy and programs and the budget for the Fiscal year 2009/10.
Four weeks or until 10th of September 2009, the first draft of the constitution will be tabled and discussed by the constitutional committee at the plenary session. They will hold party-wise discussion at the plenary session and recommend the constitutional committee if any changes are required on any theme.
During 11 to 16 September, they will give final shape of the first draft of the constitution and publish it in Nepal Gazette for suggestions and comments from the people. Public Opinion Coordination Committee shall develop an action plan to seek people's opinion on the first draft of the constitution. In the meantime, the constitutional committee will give the final shape to the first draft on the basis of the discussions and recommendations of the plenary session.
For the 12 weeks (17 September to 10 December 2009), there will be extensive discussions and interactions on the first draft of the constitution through seminars and public hearings. The four weeks (11 December 2009 to January 2010) will be utilized to prepare and present a detailed report to the CA on people's suggestions and recommendations.
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CA Members: Hectic preparation |
For eight weeks between 9 March to 28 April 2010, members will hold clause-wise discussion on the bill along with amendments in the Assembly. They will continue to make decisions on each and every article and sub-article the preamble and all other sections to be passed by the assembly. There will be extensive discussions in the Assembly and finally it will be passed by assembly.
From April 29 to May 28, 2010, the time is given for preparation of a certification of the rectified constitution and have that signed by members of the Assembly, certification by the chairperson.
Then the chairperson submits the approved constitution to the president amid a formal national ceremony organized by the CA, and the president shall proclaim amid the function the constitution by making it public for the Nepali people.
Disputes in Constitution
There are enough forces capable to create trouble against the constitution. As a country of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic, every ethnic, religious and linguistic minority groups can create problems in future with new demands.
Looking at the discussions and debate in the CA committee meeting, one can visualize what kind of new challenges the country is going to face in future. "Nepal must be restructured on the basis of ethnic identity since all the ethnic groups in Nepal want protection of their own identity, culture and language," said Hitman Shakya, member of Maoist CA in the discussion of State Restructuring Committee.
"The federal structure must be carved on the basic of geography like Terai Madhes, which has similar culture, language and weather pattern. Only the federal structure carved on the basis of geography is viable. Our party will boycott the CA if it rejects our demand of one Madhesh and one Pradesh," said Anil Kumar Jha, CA member of Nepal Sadbhavana Party.
"The criteria for federal structure should be mixed. In some cases, we can apply the geography and other cases we can apply ethnicity or linguistics," said Nepali Congress leader Narahari Acharya.
"People want federal state to retain and preserve their identity, particularly the identity of minority ethnic groups. If the country is not restructured on the basis of ethnicity, nobody will accept the new constitution, "said CPN-UML CA member Dr. Mangal Siddhi Manandhar. "Geographical division is unacceptable to us."
Federalism is not only the main disputable issues among the political parties but there are wide differences on even the forms of the government. CPN-Maoists want directly elected president in the center. Nepali Congress is divided over the form of government. Backed by a small but powerful group, Narahari Acharya proposed for elected prime minister and nominal head of the state at the center. However, party president and other majority leaders want parliamentary forms of government like in India. CPN-UML is also proposing directly elected prime ministerial system.
From directly elected prime minister to directly elected president and parliamentary forms of government with weak center to strong federations with right to self determination, special privileges and protection for marginalized groups to gender based system, all kinds of demands are coming in the meeting. Even there is dispute over the definition of national interest.
Members of Constituent Assembly have already spent a month in discussion of modality, forms of governments, structure of the state, constitutional bodies, structure of judiciary, national interest and rights of citizen.
With the history of 240 years as a unified nation and six decades long practice of modern constitution, Nepal has certain geo-strategic advantage that helps make it as independent and sovereign nations. Despite several political upheavals when even the oldest institutions like monarchy was overthrown, the country still survives as an independent nation and there is no such threat in future though forces for political instability continue to exist in the forms of minority ethnic groups.
Every ethnic, religious group is in minority and minority always comes out with agitation and arouses the public opinion in favour of it. "Main problem is rising expectations and limited capabilities to meet them. More than that, the impact of regional turmoil is there and it has a decisive role," said the analyst.
Since the unification of divergent principalities and fiefdoms into the unified nation by the great King Prithvi Narayan Shah, Nepal has experimented several political systems Rana Oligarchy, parliamentary democracy, one party Panchayat system and limited government with supremacy of constitution.
In the name of restructuring of state, the country is entering into a new phase of popularized jargon of New Nepal with almost certainty of promulgation of new constitution by April-May 2010. Although there is going to be everything for everyone, nobody can guarantee that the constitution will last long like in the USA, India and other democratic countries.
"Constitution Will Be Promulgated On Time" – Subas Nemwang
As ten months have already passed since the first meeting of Constituent Assembly –which is supposed to promulgate the constitution by May 2010, Chairman of Constituent Assembly SUBAS CHANDRA NEMWANG spoke to SPOTLIGHT about the preparations on February 2 at his office in Singh durbar. Excerpts:
You were quite busy for the past few days. What were you doing?
I was working quietly with the chairmen of various committees to meet the deadline of constitution making. I am very happy to say that we agreed to follow our schedule prepared by us. The major achievement of my quite meeting was the decision to send CA committee members to villages for seeking public opinion.
Do you think the constitution will be promulgated on time?
I am certain that the constituent assembly will promulgate the new constitution by May 2010 as prescribed by the interim constitution.
At a time when there are so many differences over the constitutional issues, how can you be so certain?
Of course, there are many differences over many issues. The positive sign is that there is consensus among us to draft the constitution in accordance with the schedule. Just today (February, 1), we decided to constitute 37 teams and send them to 75 districts to collect the public opinions.
Will they go to villages also?
Our aim is to collect the opinion of large number of population as much as possible. The committees will organize the meetings at village levels.
How will the committees collect public opinion?
The concerned committees have already been developing the model of questionnaires. After the collections of opinion, the committee will present the reports to CA. The committee will leave next week and they will submit their report to the CA by March 28, 2008.
When do you expect to produce the concept paper?
All the committees will prepare the preliminary draft by focusing on the themes and jurisdiction related to their committee and submit it to the constitutional committee by the end of second week of May. The concept paper and preliminary draft will be prepared till April 23
After presentation of the draft of the constitution, do you have any plan to go to the people?
We will again take the draft of the constitution to the people.
How supportive is the government?
I am discussing with prime minister, chief secretary and secretaries of the various ministries regarding their support to carry out all these activities.
So we can be confident that the constitution will be promulgated on time?
Don't worry we will promulgate the constitution by May 2010 and you will have new constitution drafted by the representative of the people.
