The government will submit the report of the State Restructuring Commission (SRC) to CA Chairman Subas Nembang on Thursday. But, the report in all likelihood will gather dust at Nembang´s office because the CA regulation is silent on the procedure to incorporate SRC´s suggestions in the CA. [break]
The CA regulation envisions incorporation of only such reports, which are submitted by CA´s thematic committees. The Interim Constitution provides that the SRC will submit its report to the government and the government will forward it to the themeatic committee on state restructuring. But, the thematic committee has already sent its report to CA some two years ago while the SRC was formed only about three months back.
The CA recently formed a five-member committee with a mandate to come up with a proposal to amend relevant regulations and pave way for the SRC report to be sent to the CC, which is tasked with the responsibility to resolve disputes and prepare the integrated draft of the new constitution.
The SRC report will be advanced to the CC only after the five-member committee submits its amendment proposal and the CA amends the regulations. The process will take time.
Meantime, the committee is currently idle as its coordinator Ekraj Bhandari of UCPN (Maoist) is out of Kathmandu to observe the funeral rites of his father who passed away Tuesday night.
"Maybe, it will take a week for Bhandari to return to the capital. It is yet not clear whether the Maoist party will mandate another lawmaker for the responsibility in absence of Bhandari. Also, it is not clear whether the Maoist party will accept a proposal prepared by the remaining four members," said an official, privy to the development, at parliament secretariat.
According to the official, it is not certain whether or not the Maoists will accept the proposal prepared by other four members in the committee because Bhandari firmly stood against proposals floated by the four members of the committee -- Ramesh Lekhak of Nepali Congress (NC), Agni Kharel of CPN-UML, Nilam Barma of Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic and Janak Kumari Chalise of CPN-ML.
The four non-Maoist lawmakers are in favor of CA Chairman forwarding the SRC report directly to the CA full House and then advancing it to the CC. But, Bhandari is for tabling the report to the CA thematic committee on state restructuring for deliberations, prior to forwarding it to the CA full House.
Officials said the leaders are in a mood to hold deliberations at the CA full House for two to three days before forwarding it to the CC. But, it will require more time if it is forwarded to the thematic committee first.
"If the regulation is amended and the SRC report is advanced ahead in around a week, the CC will have only around four days to resolve the disputes on state restructuring and other thorny issues such as system of governance, among others," said the official. "Given the gravity of the issues, it is unlikely that the leaders will be able to resolve the remaining disputes until February 12 as claimed by them."
After wasting three weeks without resolving a single thorny issue, leaders at the CC meeting on January 29 decided to seek two weeks more from the CA for the CC to resolve the remaining disputes in constitution writing. But, the CC has not held a single meeting since the meeting that decided to seek two weeks more for dispute resolution.
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