An all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai at his office in Singha Durbar on Monday decided to amend the Article 70 of the Interim Constitution.[break]
"We at today´s [Monday] meeting reached an agreement in principle to amend the Article 70 as it has become urgent to shorten some of the procedures of constitution making process," CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal told reporters after the meeting. He informed that the parliament´s Business Advisory Committee and concerned officials will do other needful things to register and advance the bills.
Nepali Congress leader Ram Sharan Mahat, echoing Khanal, clarified that the leaders endorsed the prime minister´s proposal to shorten some of the procedures for endorsing new constitution from the CA as it is practically impossible to abide by all the procedures as required by the constitution by the May 27 deadline.
The constitutional provision requires taking initiatives for forging consensus on each and every clause of the proposed constitution before putting the constitution bill for voting. In case of failure to forge consensus on any of the clauses, the parliamentary party leaders of political parties represented in the CA need to hold mutual consultations. As per the Article, leaders will be given 22 days to resolve the disputes. This provision is invoked even if a single lawmaker expresses his/her objection while separately endorsing each and every clause of the proposed constitution through the 601-seat CA.
Finally, the constitution bill requires to be passed by a two-thirds majority of a meeting attended by at least two-thirds of the existing members of the CA.
Also, some of the provisions of the CA regulations need to be amended in line with amended provisions of the constitution.
While the CA has yet to carry out several procedural as well as other steps in the next 48 days or so, the CA´s Constitutional Committee (CC) has yet to resolve major thorny issues and prepare the first integrated draft of the new constitution. Determining system of governance, state restructuring, judicial system and electoral system have remained the thorniest of issues among the big political parties. Public deliberations, then, should be held on the draft report before tabling it in the full sitting of the CA.
As per the latest schedule, the parties need to resolve the disputes by April 17, hold voting on unresolved issues (if any) on April 18 and 19, prepare the integrated draft by April 27 and hold public deliberations over the draft until May 13.
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