KATHMANDU, July 30: Parliamentary Hearings Special Committee (PHSC) has decided to start hearings process of the 22 nominees for the ambassadorial posts for various countries.

This decision has come at a time when there was confusion as to whether the to-be-formed government will withdraw the recommendations or forward it for parliamentary confirmation.  

The hearings committee on Friday announced that the next meeting of the committee on Sunday will open complaints registered against the ambassadorial nominees for discussion. Only nine complaints have been filed at the committee against the proposed envoys.

A cabinet meeting on April 19 had recommended 22 nominees for the post. The hearings remained pending for weeks as the political situation took a new turn after some of the ruling parties including CPN (Maoist Center) pulled out of the government forcing Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign from the post.

The parliamentary committee however conducted hearings of the nominees of chief justice and chief election commissioner and confirmed them for the post.

The committee concluded hearings of all the 11 nominees for Supreme Court justices on Thursday but it is scheduled to give the final decision about them on Saturday.

A member of Nepali Congress (NC) in the committee said rejecting any recommendations from the committee is unlikely as the committee must secure two-thirds majority. As per the parliamentary regulations, any nominee can be rejected only by two-thirds of the committee. In the 15-member committee, one member is yet to be nominated as some Madhes-based parties have not finalized members allocated for their quota.

“At least 10 members must vote against the recommendations to reject any name, but NC and CPN (Maoist Center) jointly have just 9 members in the committee,” said NC chief whip Chinkaji Shrestha. However, he did not say whether the committee is going to endorse the recommended names. In the committee, there are four members from CPN-UML and one from Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal.

According to parliamentary regulations, any nominee for the hearings will be automatically endorsed for appointment if the hearings committee failed to take any decision on them within 45 days of receiving letter for recommendation. According to the Parliament Secretariat, the committee had received the letter of ambassadorial-nominees on April 26.

 
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