The leaders who took part in the meeting claimed that the drafts would be given final shape at the next meeting called for Thursday. [break]
A couple of weeks ago, the leaders had announced that they had reached an understanding in principle on the provisions to be incorporated in the two bills.
UCPN (Maoist) lawmaker Khim Lal Devkota said that the leaders decided to wait until Thursday to give final shape to the drafts as they felt some technical aspects of the bills required further discussions and homework.
“We concluded that one more round of talks would further improve the bills,” Devkota told reporters after the three-party meeting held at Singha Durbar on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, NC leaders Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Paudel and leaders from the CPN-UML including Chairman Jhalanath Khanal and Madhav Kumar Nepal, among others, were present at the meeting. UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and NC President Sushil Koirala didn’t attend the meeting as both of them were away from Kathmandu.
Devkota said that they decided to hold next rounds of talks before finalizing the two bills also because the bills are under discussion at the subcommittee under the bills committee of parliament. “Leaders thought it is better to talk to subcommittee members who are working on the same drafts before finalizing it,” informed Devkota.
As per the proposed bill, the decision on whether to pardon a culprit or forward the case to a court would be decided by the victims and the commission. CPN-UML’s Agni Kharel, who was present at the meeting, said that the leaders from his party are of the view that no compromise should be made on the agreed condition that gives priority to a victims’ consent on whether or not to pardon the perpetrators.
Leaders agree to amend Article 70 of interim constitution
Meanwhile, the leaders endorsed the prime minister’s proposal on amending Article 70 of the Interim Constitution with a view to shorten endorsement process of the draft constitution by the Constituent Assembly (CA).
As per the existing constitutional provision, each and every clause of the draft constitution needs to be endorsed separately by two-thirds members of the 601-seat CA. Also, it is mandatory that in the case of an objection from even a single lawmaker to any of the provisions in the draft constitution, the CA must give 22 days to the parliamentary party leaders of all political parties represented in the CA to forge consensus on the disputed provisions. The prime minister’s amendment proposal seeks to do away with the 22-day provision for forging consensus.
“We decided to amend the Article 70 of the Interim Constitution in view of the time constraints,” said Devkota. According to him, the draft proposes endorsement of constitutional bills clause-by-clause or of the entire constitution in a single motion [not clause-by-clause] by two-thirds.
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