Kathmandu, Feb 24: National Assembly (NA) lawmaker Renu Chand says that the NA or the Upper House of the Federal Parliament has more legislative role compared to the House of Representatives or the lower house.
According to her, the upper house is free from two major responsibilities of the lower house: one budget formulation and formation of government. She said in her one year’s experience as the upper house lawmaker, she feels that the NA has a bit more legislative role compared to the lower house. More experienced and those who have worked in the political field for long are elected the upper house lawmakers.
Primarily, a lawmaker’s major role is to make laws and take part in the legislation process. However, this practice is a little bit to the lesser extent in Nepal’s case.
“I feel that a person has to become a member in the upper house to gain experience the kind of law and policy formulation role of a legislator. There are two platforms where lawmakers can demonstrate their role- one is the parliament and the next the parliamentary committee.”
She said the National Assembly members work diligently in the parliamentary committee, which is a good aspect. “We read in the news that the House of Representatives committees’ meetings are disrupted due to a lack of a quorum. However, this rarely happens in the case of the National Assembly.”
Lawmaker Chand shared that as a parliamentarian what she finds lacking is the Q&A with the government. According to her, moreover the lawmakers can register many proposals related to urgent matters of public importance in the House for discussions, but this has not been done to the extent required.
Another weakness is that they have failed to form a Women Committee in the National Assembly till date.
Regarding the implementation of federalism, lawmaker Chand said that it has been 10 years since the implementation of federalism and now there is talk of amending the constitution.
“If necessary, there should be amendments to the constitution on some issues in order to bring political stability in the country, reform the electoral system, to spur economic development and strengthening the inclusive side on the basis of the common consensus among the parties in the House,” she suggested.
If we review the constitution, laws have not yet been formulated to enforce the fundamental rights provided for in the constitution. The situation is such that on the one hand laws have not been made to implement the constitution while on the other hand even the laws made to implement the constitution have not been implemented.
Lawmaker Chand stressed on the need of making amendment to the constitution to further enrich whatever rights have been enshrined in the country’s supreme law. “The constitution amendment should not be such that it is retrograde, it should be progressive and forward-looking,” she asserted.
On the issue of strengthening federalism, especially local governments are somehow autonomous in nature to implement the federalism and they are carrying out activities as per their capacity.
She stressed the need of bringing Police Act and Civil Service Act to strengthen provincial government, adding now there is no situation to lag behind from federalism.
The country has already adopted federal system and there is no alternative to strengthen it, argued the lawmaker.
National Assembly member Chand added good governance would be established automatically if corruption is controlled, stating that corruption means not only money, but also behavior.
All – either politicians or general people – should pay attention to fulfill their social responsibility.
[Chand is a National Assembly member from CPN (Maoist Centre). She won the election of Constituent Assembly from Baitadi in 2064 BS. Chand is Sudurpaschim In-charge of the party.]
