With major political parties locking horns on a host of issues, there are serious concerns over whether or not the constitution would be written by May 28, the stipulated timeframe for drafting the statute. As the nation debates over the issue, myrepublica.com caught up with constitutional lawyer Bhimarjun Acharya to understand the issue.
Excerpts:
Myrepublica.com: What will happen if the Constituent Assembly (CA) fails to promulgate the constitution by May 28? What will be the president’s role in that situation?
Bhimarjun Acharya: So far, about 40 countries have opted to write the new constitution through the CA. Most countries have set aside two to three years for that purpose. If we study the facts about all the countries that resorted to constitution-writing through the CA – from France, which was the first country to promulgate the constitution through the CA in 1789 to the last country, Bolivia, to do so in 2006 – we can see that these countries drafted their constitutions in one to three years. While studying their cases, we find two trends. Some countries have written constitutions within the stipulated timeframe. Some others have failed. They have extended the deadline. The cases of extension have been established as bad trends. For instance, the CA process was obstructed in Pakistan. The CA in Pakistan began working from August 1947 and it was dissolved in October 1954. They went for fresh elections. The CA process in Pakistan continued for nearly 10 years. That is a bad practice. In Bolivia, they set aside one year for the purpose. They also missed the deadline and extended the CA tenure. They are still facing problems. We should imbibe the best practices.
In Nepal, we followed exactly the model practiced in South Africa. We copied ditto the constitutional provision practiced by South Africa regarding the CA’s tenure. Article 64 of our interim constitution is the translation of Article 73 of the constitution of South Africa. They completed the task within the given timeline and promulgated the constitution in 1997.
There is a constitutional philosophy that says that the fixed mandate
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