Pressure piles on parties to watch lawmakers

KATHMANDU, JAN 16 -
‘Monitoring panel should be formed before first meet’
Pressure is mounting on the political parties to set up a Code of Conduct Monitoring Committee within the Constituent Assembly (CA), as they seem to be indifferent towards keeping up with their obligation under the CA rules of procedure.

Legal eagles and officials at the Parliament Secretariat have urged the parties to immediately set up the monitoring body as envisaged by the CA rules and have cautioned that the people cannot afford to let leaders repeat the past mistake.

Though the CA rules of procedure in 2008 had envisaged such a committee, the parties ignored it apparently fearing that many of their law-breaking CA members would be penalised. Such a body will be responsible for the formulation, implementation and monitoring of lawmakers ’ code of conduct.

An official at the Secretariat said that it is set to formally ask the parties to form the committee immediately after the first CA meeting slated for January 22.

The body will be mandated to investigate and prepare a detail report of charges against lawmakers . Speaker of the CA can take action against the lawmakers violating the code of conduct on the basis of the report prepared by the committee.

“In the previous CA, the political parties did not pay attention to meeting their legal obligations to form the committee,” said former Advisor to the CA Tek Prasad Dhungana. The Speaker in the previous CA could not take action against the rule-violating lawmakers primarily because the sovereign body did not have its own independent investigation committee to recommend action.

Officials said having a separate probe body within the parliament or assembly is an international practice and it has been adopted in many democratic countries, including the USA and the UK.

The committee, the officals said, would be formed inducting one member from each political party represented in the CA.

“The concept evolved in the UK has been adopted by many countries now with a view that lawmakers should follow a set of moral laws,” said constitutional expert Kashiraj Dahal.

Officials at the CA Secretariat suggest that the committee should be formed before the first meeting of the CA because once cases of violation of code of conduct are reported, the parties may not cooperate in forming such a committee.

The Secretariat is all set to propose some additional and more stringent measures to ensure that lawmakers do not enjoy any form of immunity from crimes, including violation of rules and code of conduct. “If such a mechanism is formed it would be easy for the Speaker to take action against unruly lawmakers and maintain dignity of the CA,” said constitutional lawyer Purna Man Shakya.

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