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| protean |
Posted
on 01-Nov-02 04:36 PM
While the political standoff between the king and party leaders continues, prominent citizens among the king's 23 million plus subjects are keen to find out the whether the constitution in question is still alive. "It looks like it has neither been suspended nor scrapped. But it is not being fully implemented either," says Rabindra Nath Sharma, a central executive member of the RPP. Although the king referred to article 127 to give legitimacy to his October 4 proclamation, experts on constitutional issues do not agree with the royal interpretation. They see the monarch's step as a political maneuver.
"When the constitution is violated by force, then there can't be any legal implications," says Upadhyay, the chief writer of the present constitution. "There can only be political implications and this will lead to polarization and conflict."
Opposition leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, who was a member of the panel that Upadhyay led, contends that article 127 is meant for facilitation of the implementation of the statute. This article can create no new rights, not certainly for a ceremonial king , to turn a people's document into a scrap of paper.
"The latest royal act can almost be compared with a case of the change of sex of a human being," views Badri Bahadur Karki, a former attorney general and a prominent constitutional lawyer. In fact, there is no dearth of lawyers and politicians offering colorful interpretations of the statute, but nowadays there are few who are prepared to bestow on it the honor that it deserves. This year's Constitution Day - November 9 - is unlikely to attract the usual crowds of democrats and human rights activists in functions to mark the occasion, even though it is a public holiday.
Indeed, some disgruntled leaders have begun publicly floating ideas in favor of transforming Nepal into a republic, leaving the present constitution in a state of permanent disuse. While Upadhyay remains unhappy about the way in which the statute has been manipulated by the king, he primarily holds political parties and their leaders responsible for taking the country to the present constitutional stalemate, as they created an atmosphere for the king to intervene, Upadhyay concedes. He compares Nepal's present scenario with the one that prevailed in Germany in the 1920s. The Weimer constitution, he says, was a superb document, but the frequent abuse of its provisions led the country into a disaster of untold consequences.
Experts who differ with Upadhyay say that the latest royal step has only temporarily eclipsed the constitution; the suspension will swiftly disappear once the parliamentary elections are held to elect a new House of Representatives. But when? No date has been announced, and this conspiracy of silence is a matter of serious concern.
"The incumbent constitution requires some amendments for accommodating the Maoists, if not for anything else," says Kuber Sharma, president of the Green Nepal Party. In fact, he believes an entirely new draft may have to be prepared to insert several other provisions, including ones to enhance the king's role in national politics; especially when mutual bickering among political parties pushes the country towards instability.
A clearer picture of the political scene will only emerge once the dust settles. Meanwhile, those who think that a monarchy is better suited to the landlocked Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between two Asian giants, China and India, want a visionary king who would not be guided by relatives and selfish courtiers.
Balkrishna Neupane, one of the lawyers who defended the king's initiative of October 4, believes that the monarch would ultimately find it expedient to retain the existing constitution for the long-term interest of his Shah dynasty. "Any attempt to make substantive alterations in it will be like opening Pandora's box," says Neuapane, alluding to ethnically motivated campaigns.
And those making noises for a republican Nepal (especially the Maoists, who are fighting to abrogate the monarchy and turn the Hindu kingdom into a communist republic) are talking about an elected constituent assembly specifically tasked to write a new constitution. If the king agrees to such a proposition, analysts say, he would in effect be taking the risk of making the institution of the monarchy irrelevant to the country.
Was this what he contemplated on October 4?
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| protean |
Posted
on 01-Nov-02 04:36 PM
In follow up of why not questioning the King, this is about the current quagmire
in Nepal.
__________________________________________________
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DK02Df03.html
South Asia
Nepal in a constitutional bind
By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - Four weeks after King Gyanendra staged what law experts perceive as a constitutional coup by sacking the government and assuming executive powers, Nepal remains in a state of limbo, with the monarch and leaders of political parties each waiting for the other side to take a lead in ending the impasse.
"This [king's action of October 4] was a patently unconstitutional act," says former chief justice Bishwanath Upadhyay, who headed a panel that wrote the present constitution in 1990. The statute was drawn up in the aftermath of a successful pro-democracy movement, curbing the absolute powers that the king had enjoyed up until then.
Sher Bahadur Deuba, the deposed prime minister, insists that since the royal takeover was "unconstitutional", the king should immediately reinstate the elected government that he headed. Former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who presides over the country's largest party, Nepali Congress, has also urged the king to rectify his mistake by restoring the 205-member parliament that had been dissolved in May.
Madhav Kumar Nepal, leader of the opposition, prefers an early election as his colleagues in the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), a party of moderate communists, appear confident to be voted to power. But the catch is that he is unwilling to join the "puppet" government headed by the king's nominee, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, who was installed after the sacking of Deuba to head an interim government until elections are held, although the king still retains most of the executive powers.
Chand has his own agenda - of following a five-point assignment that the king gave him on October 11, the day that he was sworn in to lead the interim government, which consists of eight other royal nominees. The tasks given to the Chand team include restoring peace and order in the country, making preparations to hold elections "as early as possible", controlling corruption, launching development programs to help people, and improving relations with neighbors and other friendly countries.
But Chand has not even been able to obtain the undivided support of his own party, the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). Western countries are giving indications that they don't want to make haste in their public dealings with Chand, at least not until a date for the elections is announced. Reaction from the Maoists, the source of violence and disorder across the nation, is not encouraging either: they would not agree to negotiate with Chand because the king has not given him executive authority.
And so in the meantime the Maoists continue to launch deadly armed attacks on public facilities, including police posts, army barracks and civilian airports. The rebel onslaughts reported earlier this week from the eastern hill district of Okhaldhunga, killed two soldiers of the Royal Nepal Army. Lately, explosions in crowded market centers in the capital Kathmandu have become commonplace.
Expectations that with the deployment of army personnel alongside policemen the Maoist insurgency would be brought under control have been belied by the ongoing killings in the countryside. The army, which has traditionally remained loyal to the king, did accomplish some gains, but it has suffered heavily in terms of human casualties and lost weapons since its forces - the native Gurkhas - have been in the field since November last year.
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| dirk |
Posted
on 02-Nov-02 09:11 AM
JUst because you are named Protean...it doesn't make you Proteus, the prophetic old man of the sea ! Nor can you foretell the future. Your only agenda is to discredit the monarch and kowtow to the "elected criminals" in the name of farcical "democracy".
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| KaLaNkIsThAn |
Posted
on 02-Nov-02 09:51 AM
SICK AND TIRED OF POSTINGS ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS. GUYS WITH THE BRAIN CELLS, PLEASE GIVE US SOMETHING THAT IS WORTH A WHILE, THAT MAKES US HAPPY FOR A WHILE, THAT MAKES US EROTIC FOR A WHILE, THAT GIVES US THE REASON TO VISIT SAJHA FOR A WHILE, GIVE US SOMETHING INFORMATIVE, SOMETHING THAT WE COULD LEARN. I HATE THESE SO CALLED INTELLIGENTS, WHO BRING NOTHING BUT HEART ATTACK, AND BRAIN DAMAGE WITH THEIR SO CALLED INFORMATIVE NEWS. POLITICAL NEWS IS NOT INFORMATIVE, ITS A KILLER -- IT JUST KILLS YOUR BRAIN CELLS AND MAKES US SEE THINGS NEGETIVELY
DAMN!!
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| protean |
Posted
on 03-Nov-02 07:40 PM
Dirk,
Just because you've faith in a particualar system doesn't mean that others can share their own points of view. I'm against corrupt and ieffective leaders (that were plenty both in Panchayat and the past 12 years). I believe in fair and democratic means and just like everyone else wants to see real reforms in our land and peace in our land.
Kalankistan Ji,
Thanks for pointing that out.
This forum does allow people to share their points of views just like yourself. Just like someone might not like these kinds of postings, others might like it.
But, you're right, there has to be more exciting topics in Sajha, and we should see to it, that they get placed.
These positngs were not put up to make people see things negatively, but a attempt to see things differently.
Have a good Tihar!
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