- Drafting committee misses 5-day deadline
- Leaders decide not to evaluate but to monitor judges, constitutional bodies
- Deputy speaker to be ex-officio member of constitution council
KATHMANDU, Aug 17: A meeting of top leaders from the major political parties Monday decided to include a provision in the new constitution making it mandatory to hold elections for the local bodies within six months of termination of the tenures of elected local representatives."We have decided to make it mandatory in the constitution to conduct local elections within six months after the positions at local bodies fall vacant," Baburam Bhattarai, chairman of the CA's Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee, told reporters while emerging from the meeting.
The leaders also decided to include the deputy speaker as ex-officio member of the Constitutional Council (CC) so as to ensure the presence of a woman member on the Council.
Since the proposed constitution has made it mandatory to have a woman as either speaker or deputy speaker, the latest provision ensures the presence of a woman in the CC as well.
Similarly, the leaders made some changes to the provision on a parliamentary committee conducting monitoring and evaluating of judges and constitutional bodies.
The draft constitution included a provision allowing a parliamentary committee to monitor and evaluate the performance of judges and the constitutional bodies. But the Supreme Court and other constitutional bodies strongly opposed the provision.
Bhattarai also informed that they decided not to monitor and evaluate the National Human Rights Commission.
Drafting committee misses deadline
The CA's Constitution Drafting Committee has failed to complete the task of revising the draft constitution within the five-day deadline that expired on Monday.
The CA full House meeting on Wednesday had directed the drafting committee to revise the draft constitution within five days on the basis of the suggestions offered by the CA's Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee (CPDCC).
"We couldn't finish the task by today because some of the important issues such as secularism, electoral threshold and reappointment of judges and members of constitutional bodies remained unsettled," Krishna Sitaula, chairman of the drafting committee, told reporters at Singha Durbar on Monday. "These may take some more time to settle."
Leaders of the major political forces had agreed to make changes in the number and boundaries of the provinces, citizenship provision and electoral model, among other issues.
The draft constitution had a provision for eight provinces but this was brought down to six provinces after collecting public feedback.
Based on the same political agreement, the CPDCC had prepared its report and forwarded its recommendations for the drafting committee to make changes in the draft constitution.
Nepali Congress Vice-president Ram Chandra Poudel said the leaders are for holding talks with various dissident political parties and groups and trying to accommodate their views in the new constitution as far as possible.
"Our latest approach is to negotiate with all sides even if it takes a couple of days," said Poudel.
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