No fence-sitting, SC tells lawmakers

KATHMANDU, DEC 17 -
The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday ruled that the lawmakers cannot “abstain” from voting in the prime ministerial election and neither can a candidate be declared a prime minister unopposed, if it is an election, just because he or she is the only contender for the post. A prime minister, the court said, has to be elected through majority vote.

The apex court also declared null and void the provision in the Parliamentary Rules that allowed lawmakers to stay neutral ad infinitum. The court, however, said the neutrality provision would be null and void only when the House elects a prime minister through vote,  pursuant to Article 38 (2) of the Interim Constitution.

“Our verdict against declaring someone a prime minister unopposed does not mean that the court is questioning the provision of selecting a prime minister through consensus as per Article 38 (1),” Justice Bala Ram KC told the Post. “But, when the House starts the prime ministerial polls as per Article 38 (2), the winning candidate must get a majority vote of the total number of members present in the Parliament.”

Justice KC said this ruling should clear the confusion surrounding the SC’s earlier order that had asked the Speaker to end the futile elections through positive use of the Parliamentary rules. The ruling, issued by a special bench of SC Justices KC, Sushila Karki and Bharat Raj Upreti, was in response to a writ filed by advocate Chandra Kant Gyawali and others that challenged the lawmakers’ neutrality stance.

The bench concluded that the lawmakers’ neutrality was against the provisions of both the Interim Constitution and Constituent Assembly (CA) regulation.

The lawmakers, said the bench, should cast their vote using their intelligence and conscience as it is one of their duties to elect a strong leadership and form a stable government, aside from writing the constitution. Regarding the debate over continuity of Poudel’s candidacy in the new session beginning Sunday, the SC said it cannot interfere in the business of the House: “It’s a matter to be dealt with by the House itself.”