Kathmandu, April 22

The Parliamentary Regulations Drafting Committee today decided to consult their respective party leaderships on the two thorny issues the strength of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee and the question of whether issues should be settled through simple majority or the two thirds majority.

According to PRDC Chair Radheshyam Adhikari, the lawmakers of the panel were of the view that parties should consult their central leaders on the two issues so as to settle them on the basis of consensus.

Adhikari said he expected that the parties could hold inter-party talks to settle the two key issues. Due to differences on these two issues, the PRDC has not been able to formulate Parliamentary Regulations for the last six months.

Enactment of Parliamentary Regulations and formulation of Parliamentary Hearing Committee are necessary to expedite the appointment process of newly recommended Supreme Court justices and ambassadors.

PRDC will hold its next meeting sometime next week. The lawmakers who had submitted their amendments on the draft regulations withdrew their suggestions after the parliamentary panel resolved those issues on the basis of consensus.

Unified CPN-Maoist lawmaker Ram Narayan Bidari said the panel decided today that there won’t be voting on any issues other than the PHC related issues.

Asked if the PRDC would soon resolve differences between parties particularly between the ruling parties and the principal opposition through voting, Bidari said he was not very optimistic about it.

“Today the PRDC decided to consult their central leadership on the key issues. If things move like this, how can we formulate regulations?” he wondered.

Bidari said the deadlock seen in the PRDC could render the constitution defunct as many issues could remain pending for uncertain period of time.

“I now realise that it would be better if we can follow the old Parliamentary Regulations which are still in effect. Other parliamentary panels are following the same old Parliamentary Regulations so why PHC cannot do the same?” he wondered.

According to Adhikari, the PRDC today agreed to incorporate a provision in the new Parliamentary Regulations to allow all the parliamentary party leaders to speak for three minutes on the opening day of the new session which in the past would end after the Speaker read out the letter sent by the President to the Parliament about the new session of the Parliament.

“We decided to incorporate this provision because we believe it is necessary to do so, as parliamentary party leaders go to attend the opening session of the Parliament with new ideas,” Adhikari added.

He said the Parliamentary Panel also decided to incorporate a provision whereby the Speaker would notify the lawmakers of the exact time the meeting of the House would start on a particular day when the meeting cannot take place within an hour of the scheduled time.

According to Adhikari, this would end uncertainty about the meeting time because in the past sometimes the lawmakers had to wait for hours to attend the meeting of the Parliament.