Constitutional court gets parties' nod

KATHMANDU, March 11: In what might be seen as a major achievement in constitution writing, leaders have agreed to form a constitutional court and entrust it with the final authority to interpret the constitution and laws.



Members of the subcommittee under the Constitutional Committee (CC) of the Constituent Assembly (CA) reached an agreement to this effect at a meeting on Friday.[break]



“The meeting today [Friday] decided to form a separate constitutional court to look into issues related to the positions and rights of national importance, issues directly related to politics and to determine if the laws are in contravention of the constitution,” said a statement issued by the secretariat of the subcommittee.



The chief justice of the Supreme Court (SC) will be the chairman of the constitutional court as well.



UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal heads the subcommittee and other top leaders, including former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Nepali Congress (NC) parliamentary party leader Ram Chandra Paudel, are members of the subcommittee.



The subcommittee is yet to define jurisdiction of the SC and the constitutional committee. The subcommittee has assigned its secretariat to study and make recommendations on the jurisdiction of SC, number of justices to be appointed in the courts, their qualification, and the mechanism to make recommendations on the appointment and termination of office of justices.



The issue of which body -- parliament or the judiciary -- should be the final authority to interpret the statute had remained one of the thorniest issues in statute drafting for long.



Leaders came up with the proposal to form the constitutional court as a midway solution to resolve the dispute as the UCPN (Maoist) and the NC stood firm in their respective positions. While the Maoists insisted that a committee under parliament be mandated the authority, NC leaders held the view that the Supreme Court (SC) be entrusted with the responsibility.



NC leaders had earlier argued that forming a special bench in the SC to look into such issues would be appropriate instead of forming a separate court.

But they finally agreed on the formation of constitutional court because the Maoist leaders warned that they would backtrack on their original stance if the NC sticks to its position of entrusting all the rights to SC.



Earlier, top leaders in the high-level taskforce formed to settle the disputes had agreed in principle to ensure independent judiciary in the new constitution, but they later disputed over formation of bodies to appoint chief justices and heads and members of the constitutional bodies. At present, the constitutional council headed by the prime minister is entrusted with that responsibility.



The Maoists proposed that the speaker of parliament head such a body similar to the constitutional council.



Leaders from CPN-UML, Chairman of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum (MPRF) Upendra Yadav and other Madhes-based parties were positive about the idea of forming the constitutional court.



With the issue resolved, several of the 80 remaining contentious points have also been resolved. The 64-member Constitutional Committee, which is entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the first integrated draft by incorporating 11 thematic reports, formed the subcommittee with a view to expedite the task of resolving disputes.

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