KATHMANDU, MAY 6

Prominent lawyers told Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and top leaders of the ruling alliance that President Ramchandra Paudel could approve the citizenship bill that was pocket vetoed by ex-president Bidhya Devi Bhandari.

Senior Advocate Mithilesh Kumar Singh said he told the PM that the Citizenship Bill was a property of the President's Office, not of the Parliament, and President Paudel had the power to certify the bill as it was neither returned to the Parliament the second time nor was it rendered ineffective. 'The president has no power to return any bill passed by the Parliament for the second time,' Singh said.

When Parliament passed the citizenship bill the second time, then president Bhandari did not return it to the House but used pocket veto against the bill.

Jurists say the constitution does not give a figure head president power of pocket veto, mainly exercised in the presidential system such as the United States where the president is elected by the people and acts as an executive head. Stating that no country's head of state had returned citizenship bill to the Parliament, he said it was bizarre that our president returned the bill passed twice by the Parliament, depriving thousands of people of their citizenship rights. In Nepal, people cannot enjoy any fundamental right without citizenship certificate.

Senior Advocate Chandra Kanta Gyawali told the meeting that as the President's Office was an office of perpetual succession, there was no constitutional restriction on President Paudel that could stop him from putting his seal of approval to the bill. 'President Bhandari acted against the constitution when she used pocket veto. This bill should have become a law 15 days after it was sent to the president,' Gyawali said and added that as the bill remained in the President's Office, it could easily be certified by the president. He argued that citizenship bill could not be rendered ineffective. 'A bill dies only when it is under the Parliament's consideration and the tenure of Parliament ends or the House is dissolved. None of these conditions apply to the citizenship bill,' he added.

Gyawali said then president Bhandari's refusal to approve the citizenship bill passed twice by the Parliament was a blatant violation of the constitution and was a case of impeachment.

He said in India the president had some powers. When the president returns a bill to the Parliament with his/her observations, the Parliament is obliged to address some concerns of the head of state, but that is not the case in our country. When a bill is twice passed by the Parliament, the president cannot return or reject the bill, he argued.

President of Nepal Bar Association Gopal Krishna Ghimire said the PM sought the NBA's views on the citizenship bill and he had answered that the NBA had passed a resolution from its Birgunj meeting saying that the president should pass the citizenship bill immediately, and it continued to hold the same view. He said President Paudel could certify the bill.

'If the citizenship bill contains any provision that goes against the constitution, the Supreme Court will look into it. The president should not bother about it,' he argued.

According to Gyawali, almost all the lawyers said President Paudel was well within his rights to certify the bill. Lakhs of children of single mothers and citizens by birth have been deprived of their citizenship rights just because the Parliament has not enacted a new citizenship law, which is merely a procedural law.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 7, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.