First draft of new constitution by June 28: CDC

KATHMANDU, June 25: The Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) of the Constituent Assembly (CA) on Wednesday said that the first draft of the new constitution would be finalized by June 28.

Leaders involved in the negotiations informed that the latest rounds of talks have been fruitful in settling interparty differences on some of the unresolved issues.

"If everything goes as agreed at today's [Wednesday] meeting among leaders from the four major political forces, the drafting committee will be able to finalize the first draft by June 28," UCPN (Maoist) Vice-chair Narayankaji Shrestha told Republica.

Senior leaders from Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML, UCPN (Maoist) and Madhesi People's Rights Forum-Democratic (MPRF-D) discussed the unresolved provisions in the presence of drafting committee chairperson Krishna Prasad Sitaula and some of its members.

Based on the understanding reached among the leaders, the 11-member taskforce under the drafting committee plans to present the first draft to the 73-member drafting committee by Friday for approval.

"The understanding among leaders today has helped us settle interparty differences on some of the provisions. So we can complete the task by Friday," a member of the taskforce Ramesh Lekhak of NC told Republica.

Then, the full committee, which has representation of all the 30 political parties, will finalize the first integrated draft report and forward it to the 601-member CA full House by June 28. The plenary will conduct deliberations on the first draft and all the lawmakers' feedbacks will be taken before sending the draft to the local level for feedback.

After making changes on the draft based on public feedback, the draft will be converted into the bill of new constitution and lawmakers will be allowed to register their amendments.

After the amendments, the constitution will be endorsed by two-thirds of the CA full House and finally the president will make it public amidst a special ceremony.

The task of constitution making that had stalled for months due to interparty disputes over some of the key features of the new constitution gathered momentum only after major political forces reached the 16-point deal on June 8.

Chiefs of four major political forces -- NC, CPN-UML, UCPN-Maoist and MPRF-D -- have agreed on the number of provinces, the system of governance, electoral model and judiciary to be adopted in the federal setup.