The presidential seal of approval has already stoked controversy with a number of constitutional experts describing it as a breach of the Constitution of Nepal 2015 in its letter and spirit. President Paudel’s predecessor, Bidya Devi Bhandari, had serious reservations about the Bill that the then government had tabled on July 08 last year.
On August 15, 2022, President Bhandari had returned this very Bill to the House of Representatives for a review, in accordance with a constitutional provision, 15 days after its submission for authentication after endorsement from the House of Representatives and the National Assembly on July 22 and July 28, respectively. But the Parliament had again sent the legal instrument to the President’s Office for authentication without incorporating presidential concerns. Subsequently, President Bhandari kept the Bill on hold, courting controversy with a section of the legal fraternity pointing that it was a breach of authority on the part of the head of the state. Amid a continuing controversy, the country went for federal and provincial elections on November 20, 2022 and a new Parliament took shape along with new governments and a new President. This meant the expiry of the old Bill, per experts. But the Dahal-led coalition government chose to press ahead with the same Bill and got an express seal of approval, without the President bothering to send it back to the HoR for review. Subash Chandra Nembang, then Constituent Assembly Chair and CPN-UML lawmaker, says the presidential move shows that the government has embarked on a path not recognized by the Constitution. When the then President refused to authenticate this Bill, some parties accused her of violating the Constitution. This time, the government chose to submit the Bill to the President instead of tabling it to the House of Representatives or the National Assembly for approval. Subsequently, the President authenticated it. Which constitutional provision allows the government to present a Bill to the President by undermining the Parliament? The very parties that had accused the then President of violating the Constitution by not authenticating the Bill have opted for an unconstitutional move, he says. Ananta Raj Luitel, constitutional expert, says the Constitution does not allow the President to undertake such an unconstitutional move. According to the restrictive clause of Article 111(1), no bills under consideration at the Parliament—the lower house (HoR) or the upper house (National Assembly)—will be active following the dissolution of the HoR, Luitel said. As per Article 113 (4) of the Constitution, if any bill is returned by the President to the Parliament with suggestion or advice and if the Parliament sends it back to the President, the Head of the State should endorse it within 15 days. Luitel says: The Bill expired at the time of the then president, meaning the Cabinet has no authority to send it to the incumbent president and the latter has no authority to authenticate it. Tika P Dhakal, Press Adviser to then President Bidya Devi Bhandari, says the Bill was already dead, with the end of the tenure of the then Parliament. The incumbent government should have brought a new Bill in the Parliament and, following a due process, submitted it to the President for authentication, Dhakal said. He says: “But it acted as if it were introducing some ordinance, not bothering to differentiate between an ordinance and a Bill. This is a double breach of the Constitution.”
