KATHMANDU, Oct 13:  Parliament's meeting on Friday is going to be the last meeting of the legislature which was elected as second the Constituent Assembly (CA) in November 2013. Leaders said Friday's meeting will be the last meeting of the CA-turned-parliament if the government didn't defer the elections to the federal and provincial parliaments scheduled for November 26 and December 7.

The 601-member CA that accomplished its major task by promulgating the new constitution on September 20, 2015, was given continuity as the transitional parliament to lay the ground for the next election to elect a new parliament.

Since its first meeting on January 26, 2014, the present parliament has spent nearly 1,000 hours to hold 394 meetings in 958 days, until Thursday.

Parliament held seven sessions during its four-year term and also recorded a precedent of the longest house session of 381 days last year. The House is set to go idle from Friday due to Article 296 of the constitution which states that the term of the incumbent parliament will expire a day before the nominations for the election to the federal parliament. The Election Commission (EC) has scheduled the nomination under the Proportional Representation (PR) category for Sunday. 

This parliament elected four governments, respectively led by Sushil Koirala of Nepali Congress (NC), K P Oli of CPN-UML, Pushpa Kamal Dahal of CPN (Maoist Center) and Sher Bahadur Deuba of NC during its four-year tenure. Though the new constitution included a provision to ensure a stable government, the first post-constitution government led by Oli faced a no-confidence motion in parliament. Oli resigned before the motion was put to vote in the House. 

This parliament which delivered the new constitution in its capacity as the CA also witnessed some nasty incidents such as a brawl among Maoist lawmakers, boycott by lawmakers from the Madhes-based political parties and a no-confidence motion against a prime minister and impeachment motions.

The impeachment motions were registered in this parliament against the chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Lokman Singh Karki and the then Chief Justice Sushila Karki. But the impeachment motion against the CIAA chief was terminated without being put to vote as the Apex Court disqualified him for the post while the impeachment motion against the chief justice was withdrawn following public pressure.

The parliament endorsed some milestone laws, including the replacement of the 180-year-old Muluki Ain (Civil Code) and the bill to establish transitional justice mechanisms. Likewise, this parliament endorsed over two dozen constitution implementation laws including the election-related bills, formation of various commissions and high courts, among others. 

The parliament amended the new constitution within a year of its promulgation but the second bill to amend the constitution failed in the House.

 
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