Narayan Manandhar
The item number 4 of the 100 actionable tasks, to be completed within 100 days, by the RSP government, included preparing a discussion paper on constitutional reforms within seven days. The government has formed a task force to complete this task within 60 days.
Insult to the injury
Given the sensitivity of the issue, the goal is too ambitious. To add insult to the injury, the coordinator, with a background on film production, has been appointed to do the job. Sounds like the government is poised for writing cinema scripts or clips than showing seriousness with the issue.
Opposition’s lukewarm response
NC, the largest party in the opposition failed to turn up in the meeting; instead sought a clarification on TOR of the task force. Internal politics within NC may have deterred its participation but it is near impossible to talk about constitutional reforms sans NC participation. NC has formed internal committee of its own to discuss on the issue. As reported in the media, in the meeting, CPN-UML expressed its reservations against government taking Oli under custody. Mr Dev Gurung, representing NCP, is good at deflecting the issue, rather than bringing it to a conclusive end. How the task force going to deal with RPP which is hell bent on abolishing federalism and reviving monarchy is never known? The madhesibadis and janajatis are dead against the idea of abolishing federalism. Besides federalism and republicanism, there are several issues that are touchy and political parties having diametrically in opposite stands.
Forget about other political parties, even governing RSP does not have a clear standing on the issue. Within RSP, there are factions determined to abolish the constitution and those seeking timely reforms.
Pandora’s Box
Earlier, prior to Gen-Z movement, NC-UML grand alliance government, also had an agenda to reform constitution, but shied away after realizing its sensitivity as well as lack of 2/3rd majority. Definitely, the current government can garner 2/3rd majority in the lower house, but it has a zero majority in the upper house. So with the provincial governments.
RSP hasty decision will only helps to opens up a can of worms, if not a Pandora’s Box. The present Constitution do provide a clause (274) to amend constitution. Only four issues, namely, sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence of Nepal and sovereignty vested in the people, are not amenable to amendment; all other issues can be amended provided it passes through the procedures mentioned in the Constitution.
Most expensive constitution
With two rounds of CA elections, spending more than eight years in drafting the constitution with so much bloodshed, violence and destruction, the Constitution must be the most expensive one, in terms of, time, cost and efforts. However, there are negative sides as well. Had it not been April Earthquake in 2015 and donors’ $4 billion aid commitment, who knows, we probably would still be struggling to draft the Constitution. Our Southern neighbor never endorsed the Constitution. We paid the price in form of undeclared nakabandi. Terai-based Madhesibadis never endorsed this constitution.
One-Text drafting
If you cannot discuss drafting on a “discussion paper”, how would you proceed with the reform process? Instead of forming a task force comprising of political party reps, it would have been wise enough to form a task force of constitutional experts, assigning them to draft a discussion paper to be reviewed and amended by the political parties. Similar to Harvard Negotiation Project’s one-text negotiation, the draft can be continuously improved until everyone is satisfied with the draft. Alternatively, the reform process can move with picking up first “low hanging fruits” and then move on to difficult tasks. Whatever the approach taken, the minimum bottom line for the political parties would not be less than what is being prescribed in the present constitution.
