The Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2063 (2007) - Digital Himalaya

THE INTERIM CONSTITUTION OF NEPAL, 2063 (2007)AS AMENDED BY THE FIRST TO SIXTH AMENDMENTSPart 22 is called “Miscellaneous", and it does various things. It creates theConstitutional Council. This is made up of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, theSpeaker of the Legislature Parliament and three Ministers chosen by the Prime Minister(and the Leader of the Opposition added in 2008).. The Part says that the Council ofMinisters recommends to the President names of people for appointment as NepaleseAmbassadors. The Council of Ministers also has the power to recommend that thePresident pardon people convicted of criminal offences, and if anyone is convictedthey can suspend the sentence, or change the sentence to something less serious oreven say that the person will not serve the sentence at all. Any honours or titlesgiven by the state are formally given by the President, following the recommendationof the Council of Ministers. It is not clear if he also decides on the honours. No Nepalcitizen can accept any honour from a foreign country without Nepal governmentapproval. The Government can create the civil service and any other services neededto run the country. There must be a law to deal with this. The Government may setup special commissions to protect the rights of women, Dalits, Janajatis, Madhesis,disabled, labourers or farmers and others. When any person is appointed to be amember of any commission there must be a hearing before the Legislature Parliament.A law must deal with this. There is also a rule about qualifications for peopleappointed to positions under the Constitution: they must be citizens and must, ifthey are naturalised citizens, have lived in Nepal for 10 years.There is also a rule about approval of treaties entered into by Nepal. If they deal withcertain important topics, including peace, security, the boundaries of Nepal or naturalresources, they must be approved by two-thirds of all the members of the LegislatureParliament. There is also a provision for a referendum (a vote of all the people) ifsome matter of national importance is to be decided. The Constituent Assembly canrefer such a matter to the people in this way – unless the Constitution says that thematter must be decided in some other way. There has been some discussion about areferendum to decide on future of the monarchy. But this is said in the Constitutionto be decided by the Constituent Assembly itself, so the Constitution would have tobe changed in order for this question to be referred to a referendum. There is a finalprovision which says that if there is any difficulty in connection with implementationof the Constitution, the Council of Ministers could issue any orders to remove thedifficulties. The Council of Ministers can recommend necessary action to thePresident to remove the difficulties – but this must be approved by the Legislature-Parliament within in a month.32