Monday, August 16, 2010

Interaction Program about Constitution in Nepal



Most Visited Blog Exclusive Report

Behind the Celebrities





In Nepal, the discourse of Constituent Assembly (CA) had been going on since 1950, this finally ended on 28th May, 2008 when the first meeting of CA was held. The historical CA election was held on 10th April 2008. The day of the first meeting of CA was a milestone in the Nepalese history as it declared Nepal as a democratic republic and ended centuries of monarchy rule. There have already been 29 meetings of CA held until 27th May 2009. People are curious about the purpose and outcomes of these meetings. People are watching the process of the constitution making.

The first meeting of CA was held in International Conference Center Kathmandu on 28th May, 2008. It started late at 9.20 p.m. due to various procedural dilemmas. Mr. Kul Bahadur Grurung, senior member of CA, chaired the meeting. The meeting started by him reading a letter sent by the then head of state Mr. Girija Prasad Koirala regarding the calling of CA meeting. Thereafter, the CA gave condolence to known and unknown martyrs who sacrificed their life for the rights of the Nepali people.

Mr. Kul Bahadur Gurung welcomed all the members' present in this meeting and wished that the CA would be able to complete the role of making the constitution of Nepal that has been assigned by the people. In the same meeting the then head of state Mr. Girija Prasad Kiorala also gave a speech. Mr. Kul Bahadur Gurung also read Goodwill letter sent by Somnath Chatargi, speaker of the Loksava of India, congratulating on the successful completion of historical CA election and showering good wishes and hope that the CA would be able to complete the task assigned to the CA by the Nepali people. The work schedule of CA had not made yet until the first day. The same meeting passed the interim work schedule. After fixing the work schedule, Home Minister, Mr. Krishna Prasad Sitaula on behalf of the then head of state Mr. Girija Prasad Koirala presented the proposal on execution of republic. CA members discussed their views on this issue and since this proposal could not get a unanimous consensus by all members, the decision was made based on the numbers of yes and no. Out of the 564 members present at the first meeting, 560 members gave their consent in favor of the proposal and remaining 4 were against the proposal.

After the declaration of the execution of republic, the head of the CA Mr. Kul Bahadur Gurung put forward the proposal to the CA regarding the directive to be given to the former king and his personal secretariat to leave Narayanhiti Palace within 15 days. This proposal was passed by consensus and the first meeting ended.

Similarly the second meeting of the CA was held on 5th June 2008. This meeting formed the committee for drafting the CA (procedure) regulation and this meeting ended the decision of the date of the third CA meeting which was to be held on 11th June 2008.

During the gap between second and third meeting, relationships between the various political parties seemed uneasy on several issues. Certain political parties started putting their own stand on some issues and started to even boycott the CA meeting. In the third meeting of CA, many members aired their views immediately after starting the meeting. The Rastriya Prajatantra Parti (RPP) left the CA after deciding to boycott the activities of CA with the demand of minimizing the price hiking. Despite the boycott of RPP, Constituent Assembly sustained and many members put their view and asked the Prime Minister to open the door for the formation of the new government. In the same meeting, Head of the CA, Mr. Kul Bahadur Gurung read the resignation letters of the CA members who had been elected from two constituencies in First Past the Post System resigned from one constituency. The CA members and the constituency from which they resigned were as follow: Mr.Sher Bahadur Deuwa from Kanchanpur constituency no. 4, Mr. Dev Prasad Gurung from Kaski constituency no. 1, Mr. Puspa Kamal Dahal from Rolpa constituency no. 2, Mr. Upendra Yadav from Morang constituency no. 5 and Mr. Bijaya Kumar Gachhedar from Morang constituency no. 7. The same meeting nominated 44 more members for parliamentary work management advisory committee which has the representatives of all the political parties in the CA. It was also decided that the fourth meeting would be held on 18th June 2008.

The forth meeting of CA which was held on 18th June 2008 started with CA members putting forward their opinions regarding the various political issues. This meeting nominated 6 CA members, out of the 11 members, to chair the meeting in the absence of chairperson and remaining 5 were already nominated as the interim procedure of CA prescribes the 11 members committee for this provision. This meeting ended without a fixed date for the next meeting.



--


Regards;
VK Pandey

No comments:

Post a Comment