Drafting committee gives taskforce a week to resolve disputes

KATHMANDU, June 18: The Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) of the Constituent Assembly (CA) has forwarded the list of disputes in constitution writing to a taskforce comprising members of the committee and asked it to prepare an integrated draft of new constitution and submit it to the full committee within a week.

Earlier, the CDC had tasked various five thematic subcommittees with settling disputes that have not yet been resolved. But the 73-member CDC at its meeting on Tuesday forwarded the issues to the six-member taskforce as the subcommittees couldn't resolve the differences and sent them back to the full committee, which has members from all political parties represented in the CA.

Previously the CA's Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (CPDCC) had forwarded its report to the CA plenary without resolving some of the disputes.

"The committee has asked the taskforce to settle the disputes and submit an integrated draft report to the full committee meeting scheduled for Monday," CDC member Rewati Raman Bhandari told Republica.

After that lawmakers will be allowed to register amendments. Then, the committee will conduct article-wise deliberations in the committee.

Political parties have been disputing over whether or not to include the word "pluralism" in the preamble of the new constitution. Nepali Congress (NC) is for mentioning it in the preamble while the UCPN (Maoist) is against it. Similarly, political parties haven't yet finalized various provisions related to citizenship.

Earlier, members of various subcommittees disputed over possible course of action if any issue included in the 16-point political deal contradicted with any provision of the draft already prepared by the CDC.

"The 16-point deal will be relevant as long as the content is related to four key contentious issues," said UCPN (Maoist) lawmaker Ram Narayan Bidari.

But lawmakers from other political parties, including Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, want the 16-point deal to supersede the related provisions.

Also, political parties have been disputing whether or not judges and other office bearers appointed in constitutional bodies should be reappointed after the commencement of the new constitution.

"We believe that reappointing them is meaningless," said NC lawmaker Ramesh Lekhak.

Leaders of various political parties have also disputed whether or not the existing districts should be restructured in the federal set up.

Lawmakers from UCPN (Maoist) and Madhes-based parties have insisted that even districts should be restructured while NC and UML are for giving them continuity as an administrative unit.

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