The party leaders came to that agreement when Constituent Assembly (CA) Chairman Subas Nembang floated a proposal to that effect at a meeting on Thursday of the subcommittee formed to settle disputes in constitution writing. [break]
The top leaders acted with a sense of urgency as the Supreme Court last Friday issued a verdict that the CA can extend its term one last time, for another six months.
Following the agreement, the subcommittee, which is headed by UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, instructed the CA secretariat to come up with a draft calendar of events for the next two months, at the subcommittee´s next meeting on Friday.
Former prime ministers Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal and Nepali Congress (NC) leaders Ramchandra Paudel and Bimalendra Nidhi are among the members of the subcommittee, formed under the CA´s Constitutional Committee, which is entrusted with the tasks of resolving disputes and preparing an integrated draft of the new constitution.
According to party leaders present at the meeting, Nembang pressed the leaders to make the optimum use of the next two months and resolve all the remaining disputes -- except for issues related to state restructuring -- and prepare the integrated draft report before the two-month tenure of the state restructuring commission expires.
A subcommittee member said that the leaders have decided to reach an agreement with regard to the system of governance and electoral model, among other contentious issues.
"We need to be ready to decide the remaining issues -- if any -- through a vote in the full house of the 601-seat CA," the member quoted the CA chairman as saying. "Once these issues are settled, the CC can start preparing the integrated draft of the statute and ready it by the time the commission offers its suggestions on state restructuring."
Nembang suggested to the leaders that the report incorporating the commission´s suggestions on state restructuring can be tabled in the full house for deliberations and later distributed to the public for their feedback.
The draft will be discussed in the CA after incorporating feedback from the people.
Leaders at the meeting were persuaded by the proposal and they subsequently instructed the CA secretariat to prepare a draft calendar of events accordingly.
Officials at the secretariat said the subcommittee will prepare the calendar of events and forward it to the CC, and finally a meeting of the Business Advisor Committee will endorse it.
We can bring statute in six months: Dahal
At the subcommittee meeting, Maoist Chairman Dahal urged the leaders to concentrate all their efforts in completing the tasks of constitution writing in the remaining six months instead of debating whether the Supreme Court´s recent verdict was appropriate or not.
"I don´t know what the SC has said in its verdict but I believe in the people´s court and there is no need to worry about the verdict since we can complete the constitution writing in the next six months," a subcommittee member quoted Dahal as saying at the meeting.
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