By Tika R Pradhan in The Kathmandu Post, April 17, 2023
With ruling parties including the Nepali Congress opposing the CPN-UML’s demand that the second-largest party must have four House members in the hearings committee, crucial bills are stuck in Parliament.
Even the scheduled meetings of the top leaders of the three major parties—the Congress, the UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre)—have failed to take place due to the dispute.
In a clear sign of conflict, a meeting of the three top leaders scheduled to take place at UML chair KP Sharma Oli’s residence in Balkot could not happen on Sunday after Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba skipped it.
Maoist leaders, however, reasoned that the ruling leaders were busy with Cabinet expansion.
“On Friday, the meeting was cancelled as the UML chair was unwell, and it did not happen on Saturday for the same reason,” said Hitraj Pande, chief whip of the Maoist Centre. “Then, on Sunday, the prime minister got busy with Cabinet expansion, even though Oli had said he could sit for a meeting if they came to his residence.”
Frequent cancellations of the top-level meeting, which was expected to finalise the process of endorsing crucial bills, has delayed them further.
The three party leaders are trading the blame.
UML leaders claimed that the prime minister had called the meeting at Balkot but he himself didn’t show up, nor did the Congress president.
“This shows that the government is not serious about endorsing essential bills,” said Padam Giri, the chief UML whip. “We have two major issues with the TRC bill—the victims must get justice and the bill must be discussed in the thematic committee.”
The meeting of the House of Representatives failed to discuss on Sunday at least three crucial bills—one related to the peace process, the other to the Constitutional Council Act, and one to money laundering.
The prime minister has been widely criticised for keeping the judiciary headless for long and five positions of the justices vacant for more than a year. The Supreme Court has been headed by the acting chief justice for 14 months.
But the crux of the discord among the major parties is the seats their members will be holding on the Parliamentary Hearings Committee. The 15-member joint committee has 12 members from the House and three from the National Assembly. The committee has the power to either endorse or reject appointments to various constitutional bodies and ambassadorships.
According to leaders of the ruling coalition, the UML has objected to the proposal presented by the parliament secretariat on the composition of the committee. Though the secretariat has proposed four lawmakers from the Congress, three from the UML and one each from other parties represented in the federal parliament, the UML has said it too should have four members of the committee. Besides that, the party will get one seat for its Assembly member.
“Actually, the UML’s only goal was to prevent the ruling parties from having a two-thirds majority in the committee,” said Pande, the Maoist Centre chief whip. “The Congress is dead-set against UML’s demand.”
The Parliamentary Hearings Committee needs 10 members for a two-thirds majority to reject any nominations for the constitutional council. If the UML gets only three members from the House, it will only have four members in total (including one guaranteed membership from the Assembly).
“With five members from the UML and one from Rastriya Prajatantra Party, the UML wants to deny the ruling parties a two-thirds majority,” said Pande. “If the UML gets to appoint only three members from the lower House, then it will not be in a position to check the ruling parties’ decisions.”
With Congress chief whip Ramesh Lekhak on a foreign trip, the party also seems ready to buy time for inter-party negotiations.
Endorsing the bill related to the Constitutional Council, which makes vital constitutional appointments, will be meaningless unless the major parties agree on the committee’s formation: even if the bill is endorsed, appointments cannot be made without parliamentary hearing.
Prime Minister Dahal, however, consulted with Congress chief Deuba on Sunday as well before Cabinet expansion.
A UML leader privy to the negotiations told the Post that the ruling coalition seemed intent on sharing the UML’s quota in the hearing committee with the Unified Socialist.
“The UML won’t accept this,” said the leader. “The Congress and the UML have the difference of only 10 seats. Therefore, both parties must have equal representation in the committee.”
https://kathmandupost.com/politics/2023/04/17/congress-uml-row-over-hearings-panel-seats-delays-vital-bills
