The leaders will again take up the issue on Saturday and try to reach a detailed agreement on it. [break]
"We held meaningful and effective discussions on judicial system and we have reached an agreement on certain principles," Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who also heads the taskforce, told reporters after the meeting at Singh Durbar. He further added: "After tomorrow´s meeting we will give a concrete message to the people that parties have reached an agreement on judicial system," Dahal said.
The issue of judiciary in the new constitution had remained as one of the thorniest issues in the statute-drafting process as major parties differed on fundamental principles about the judiciary.
Top leaders agreed to form a separate body to appoint or sack chief justice, justices of the Supreme Court (SC) and members of constitutional bodies. Leaders said they will decide about the composition, leadership, name and jurisdiction of such a body on Saturday.
Speaking at the taskforce meeting, Maoist leader Dev Gurung proposed that chief of the parliament should head the body, while NC leader Ramesh Lekhak argued that executive prime minister [or executive president] should lead it.
"If Speaker heads the mechanism, there will be a practical difficulty to incorporate the prime minister in the body due to hierarchical issue," Lekhak said.
Maoists leaders seemed more receptive of the arguments made by other leaders in the taskforce meeting. After listenig Lekhak´s argument, Dahal said, "Let´s settle this matter once we deal the issue of composition of the body".
Leaders at the taskforce have also narrowed down their differences over the dispute on who should be the final authority to interpret the constitution.
Maoists are for authorizing a special committee under the parliament to interpret the constitutional provisions in connection of any political issues, post or rights directly related to the national interest or in case of any law contradicting to the constitution.
But NC, UML and other parties are for entrusting the SC for the purpose. Leaders said they have moved ahead toward finding common grounds on that matter as well.
"If the Maoists don´t backtrack from today´s understading, we can resolve almost all the remaining issues about the judicial system. In this sense, this can be taken as a major achievement," Lekhak said.
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