Leaders agree to iron out differences

KATHMANDU, Oct 4: After months-long hiatus, political leaders have reached yet another agreement to resume the constitution writing process right away.

A meeting of the parliamentary party (PP) leaders of all the 27 political parties in the Constituent Assembly (CA) called by CA Chairman Subas Nembang on Sunday decided to hold regular discussions starting Tuesday to iron out differences among the parties on the contents of the new statute.

Nembang called the meeting to discuss how the preliminary draft reports prepared by CA thematic committees can be forwarded to the Constitutional Committee (CC) -- that is entrusted with preparing an integrated draft report of the statute by incorporating all the 11 thematic reports -- at the earliest.

He took the initiative after the Preliminary Draft Reports Study Committee of the CA handed over a report prepared after studying the eight preliminary drafts to him on Thursday. The committee came up with the report after identifying repetitions, duplications, redundancy, omissions and contradictory provisions in the reports and also suggested ways to address these shortcomings. It has identified and prepared a list of around 225 contentious issues that need to be sorted out in the eight thematic reports.The committee had previously submitted the reports of the other three thematic committees. The Interim Constitution has a provision that the chairman can convene such a meeting of PP leaders if disputes surface in connection with statute drafting.

"Distributing the report and the list of questionnaires, I urged them to regularly work toward narrowing down the differences and to forward the reports to the CC as early as possible,” Nembang told Republica.

According to a member present at the meeting, the leaders decided to discuss the report prepared by the CA committee on system of governance starting Tuesday. The issue of selecting a system of governance is one of the most contentious that has surfaced while preparing preliminary reports.

On system of governance, Maoists have been lobbying for executive presidential system and unicameral parliament while Nepali Congress and CPN-UML are for executive prime minister and bicameral legislature. The parties have also differed over the electoral system, among other provisions, to be adopted in the new constitution.

The determination of the system of governance would be a significant achievement in statute drafting process as the model itself would sketch an outline of the new constitution. The constitution drafting process is likely to hit a snag if the parties fail to determine the system of governance right away.

After holding discussions at the meeting of PP leaders, the preliminary reports will be forwarded to the CC.

As per the latest (eleventh amendment) calendar of operation, all the thematic reports should be forwarded to the CC latest by September 15. The CC Chairman Nilambar Acharya has said his committee needs at least a month to prepare the integrated draft.

All the differences must be resolved prior to forwarding the drafts to the CC. The CC can´t vote on the options over contentious provisions related to various thematic committees. "Either it should be resolved by the PP leaders´ meeting or only the CA full house," Tek Prasad Dhungana, legal advisor of the CA, told Republica.

Since voting on around 225 provisions at the 601-member CA is impracticable, it seems there is no alternative to resolving it from other than the parliamentary party leaders. "Now the ball is in the leaders´ court. It´s up to them whether to expedite the work or further delay it," Nembang said.

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