A meeting of the 61-member CC, which is tasked with resolving disputes and preparing the integrated draft report of the new constitution, passed the proposal with minor changes in the wordings used in the document.[break]
The proposal will be tabled later at a meeting of the 601-seat Constituent Assembly (CA) for final endorsement. Officials at the CA secretariat said they are planning to endorse it through the CA full House by Tuesday provided the political parties are ready for that.
As per the proposal, the leaders have agreed to settle all the remaining disputes in constitution writing -- except for the issues related to state restructuring -- by December 30 at the dispute resolution subcommittee, which is headed by UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and represented by top leaders of the major political parties.
As per the plan, the CA will decide unresolved issues through voting until January 9 while the CC will prepare the first integrated draft by Jan 29, 2012.
The CC has been given a timeline of 15 days starting February 13, 2012 to finalize the draft and the CA full House is to discuss the first integrated draft, endorse it and publish in the gazettes until March 5. Similarly, the publicity and public feedback collection campaign will carried out from March 6 to March 28.
A period of one month starting April 13 has been allotted for distribution of the bill among the CA members, for amendment registration, article-wise deliberations and for the endorsement of the bill by two-thirds of 601-seat CA.
As per the proposed timeline, in the last seven days, the CA members are to sign the new constitution, the CA chairman to authenticate it and submit it to the president for promulgation by May 27.
Officials at the CA secretariat, however, remain skeptic about implementation of the time-bound plan given the CA´s past record.
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