The Supreme Court has taken a major decision and stood on the side of democracy and rule of law. It has dismantled the illegitimate RCCC. But this is only the first step. Every other step taken by this regime since 2/1 has to be similary challenged and dismantled. Ultimately 2/1 itself has to be challenged and dismantled.
The Supreme Court has it within its powers to avoid unnecessary turmoil in the country. The people already fought in 1990. They should not have to fight again. And if the 1990 constitution be inadequate, as I strongly believe it is, it is sufficient to move from the 1990 constitution itself to the next constitution.
But 2/1 hijacked that 1990 constitution. There is no provision whatsoever in the 1990 constitution to turn the crown into the king, the president, the prime minister and demigod all in one.
RCCC was unconstitutional, and so was 2/1.
The democratic forces have to be put back into power so they can walk down their succinct roadmap to the constituent assembly.
The Supreme Court has it within its powers to avoid turmoil and possible bloodshed in the country. And it needs to be using those powers. Or the dictum of rule of law will ring hollow. The concept of democracy is being tested. The concept of rule of law is being tested. If there is rule of law in Nepal, as the Supreme Court claims there is, as the 1990 constitution claims there is, then that rule of law should be sufficient to prevent autocracy, that should be enough to push back any attempts at autocracy.
Rule of law and democracy mean people do not have to go out into the streets in large numbers to keep reminding they are the real owners of the country.
The Supreme Court has taken the first step in the right direction. Will it take more steps in the same direction? That is the question.
RCCC Out, RPP Split
These are signs the regime's days are numbered. I would not be awfully happy now if I were the king. The king has defended the RCCC nonstop. Now he needs to resign on moral grounds. That is how democracies work. This Supreme Court verdict is proof the king does not have any grasp of the 1990 constitution.
Human Rights And The Supreme Court
The various human rights organizations can at best make some noise on the issue. But it is the Supreme Court's supreme duty to protect human rights, and it has the powers to do so. The Supreme Court has no more important responsibility than to protect human rights in Nepal.
It needs to order all political prisoners released unconditionally and without delay. It needs to warn the government not to curb the people's fundamental right to peaceful assembly.
All political leaders need to be released immediately.
Order The King To Step Down
The Supreme Court needs to order the king to step down. The 1990 constitution at best makes him a constitutional monarch. He has not been that. He has stepped out of his bounds. The Supreme Court needs to order him to step back. The king has the protections and privileges granted by the 1990 constitution only as long as he stays within that constitution. And it is for the Supreme Court to make sure he stays within. If he steps out, he is on his own.
The People Own The Supreme Court
All the Supreme Court justices are on the people'a payroll because the people own the judiciary, just like they own all branches of government. The Supreme Court only answers to the people through the realm of rule of law.
The people have been robbed of their sovereignty by 2/1, something that was guaranteed to them by the 1990 constitution. Such a flagrant violation can not be tolerated.
Article 127 does not allow for 2/1, and if it does, the 1990 constitution is not a democratic constitution. And if the 1990 constitution is not democratic, it is illegitimate, and if it is illegitimate, the Supreme Court is also illegitimate along with the monarchy. So it is either that or the Supreme Court act to restore the sovereignty where it belongs to prove the 1990 constitution is democratic.
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In The News
Supreme Court orders dissolution of RCCC; Deuba to be released NepalNews A five-member special bench of SC justices Kedar Prasad Giri, Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, Ram Nagina Singh, Anup Raj Sharma and Ram Prasad Shrestha decided to dissolve the RCCC formed after last year’s February 1 royal move........ the formation of the anti-graft body was unconstitutional as it contradicted with Articles 83 (3), 84, 85, 88 (3), 89, 105 (7) and 127 of the Constitution of the Kingdom (1990)....... also ordered to annul all the actions and decisions taken by the Royal Commission ........ Advocate Santosh Kumar Mahato had on 10th August 2005 filed a writ petition at the SC challenging the constitutionality of the commission. ......... has nixed the constitutionality of the February 1 royal move as such....... “The Supreme Court has given its verdict in favour of the constitution. Now the royal move itself has lost all constitutional excuses” ........ “Today’s verdict has proved that the Supreme Court is a responsible interpreter of the constitution. The verdict is in favour of the constitution and the rule of law.” .......
Election to Constituent Assembly could end conflict: leaders
We are ready to accept any result of the constituent assembly: Prachanda
15 student leaders freed
NT workers demand pre-paid phone resumption
Government release 55 people including 23 professionals
IMF asks government to restore peace
FNJ calls Maoists to honour press freedom
Meeting Prachanda The BBC's Charles Haviland finds Maoist leader more humorous than intimidating. BBC The 52-year-old man I met, with his speckled beard, was mild-mannered, shy, joking, laughing nervously - more humorous than intimidating and without the overt charisma of some revolutionary leaders....... looked more like a popular uncle than a communist who has been underground since 1981 ...... His number two, Baburam Bhattarai, with a cloth cap and eagle eyes, and flanking Prachanda, looked much more revolutionary........ It was as if the words were inside him, waiting to be forcefully expelled...... Much of the Maoists' behaviour nowadays is pragmatic rather than ideological ...... his statements that the Maoists now accept multi-party democracy; that they are unlikely to try to take Kathmandu by force; that a future government involving them could work with America, and that if there can be elections to a constituent assembly, the Maoists are ready to "call off the war"....... Prachanda said the king might face a future of exile or even trial at what he called a People's Court, leading to possible execution...... Nepal has in any case abolished capital punishment. ....... Before the king seized political power a year ago, the Maoists used to say they would only talk to the palace, as the centre of real power....... any permanent unilateral ceasefire, building on their recently expired temporary one, would under present conditions amount to surrender...... his party is a long way from abandoning its violent practices.......the Maoists were "investigating" the shooting of a municipal election candidate and the killing of a taxi driver during a Maoist general shutdown......... Prachanda said that although there were ideological ties, his party did not believe in exporting revolution, despite its affiliation with the Revolutionary International Movement - an umbrella body dedicated to spreading communism......... "Ideologically we want to move the global revolution forward but in practical terms we do not believe one country's army should go to another country and fight for it." ....... Prachanda's vision of a future Nepal is one he says is already being built, eroding class, caste and gender barriers...... Prachanda, like Baburam Bhattarai, is a revolutionary to the core. At one point he said to Dr Bhattarai that he wished we would ask some ideological questions......... his rhetoric is still fiery.
Prachanda interview: Transcript It is not like the American vision where there would be a river of blood. We want to conquer Kathmandu with the people's rebellion..... we like the political solution better. And we are working towards it....... we are ready to have a political competition with the parties ...... And since we have said that we'd go for a peaceful election of the constituent assembly, we're ready to follow whatever the verdict of the people is........ We have stated this over and over again. We'll accept the people's verdict....... But we believe that the people's version will be for a democratic republic...... And we have committed to accept multi-party competition....... Gyanendra-ism and his feudalistic clique will certainly be destroyed. ....... an army loyal to a medieval royalty ..... the royal army, who have been oppressing Nepali people for 237 years, and are loyal to a small clique, who have no loyalty to respect for democratic ideology - that army has to be dismantled. ...... We are not standing in the way of a peaceful solution. It is the King and his royal army. Even within the royal army, we do not believe that the lower cadres and officials of the army want the war to go on. It is a small clique of generals who belong to the feudalistic privileged class, the Rana and Shah clans of Nepal; they want this war to go on........ But what we feel till now, and what experience has shown us, is that America does not work for the improvement of people anywhere. It works only for itself. It works for the benefit of the ruling class, the capitalists within America....... If the so-called current government sitting in Kathmandu, the clique of feudal, privileged class - as long as they exist, there is no question of us working with America or any other country. After this clique is dismantled, once there is people's government - a democratic and progressive government - that government will be ready to work with any country around the world......... We do not have a working relationship with the Maoists [in India]. ......... Ideologically we do want there to be a revolution in the USA and even in your UK, and that the working classes should rule......... It's been well established that no government anywhere has financially supported our revolution and nor have they supported us in material or military ways....... This revolution has been supported purely by Nepali people......... We certainly have said that dirty and vulgar materials and literature from America or cheap and dirty literature from India should be banned....... You won't find exploitation and injustice in villages, such as discrimination against dalits [the lowest castes]. And the practice of "untouchability" has ended........once the war is over, we believe that we can move forward and develop economically or otherwise at a very fast pace........ the right to rebellion by the oppressed is a human right. There are no greater human rights than the people's right to fight for their rights.......... We do not even train children below 16 years old as militia....... when there is a cessation of war, our People's Liberation Army works in the fields of people, they work as labourers to build roads for people........ I think you probably don't know this, but after that incident at Madi when there was an explosion on the bus, we were shocked beyond words....... Our party workers who were involved in it, they were expelled from the party and the army, and the report on how this expulsion was carried out was given to the UN.......... we did not have a policy of physically harming any candidate.... - in Janakpur - where a local worker of the party took responsibility for the killing. We are investigating this......... We are investigating on the incident of Janakpur and this has been informed to the United Nations Human Rights office. That is why there is no difference between what we say and what we do...... As soon as the people are given the right to decide of their own fate and of their own future, we will be ready to lay down our arms. But if the people are not given their rights, we are committed to and are ready to fight till the end...... as soon as there is a possibility of preparing a new constitution through a constituent assembly, and form a new army, we are ready to call off the war........ Three years ago, at a Central Committee meeting of our party, analyzing the experiences from 20th century communist states, we put forward a proposal for the development of democracy... In the 21st century we cannot have a state like those of the 20th century..... there should be peaceful competition between all political parties against feudalism and foreign imperialist forces...... multi-party competition [should exist] as long as it's against feudalism, against foreign imperialistic interference and all political parties can compete against each other........ Our opponents have understood us in a dogmatic way. We are not dogmatic but our opponents are. They are looking at us with 20th Century glasses. But we are already moving into the 21st Century......... we have taken the experience of an entire century, discussed it, analyzed it in our party, and we've come to a conclusion that the development of democracy is necessary in the 21st Century........ Our movement is not for me to be the head of state....... the development of ideology which would globally uplift and give rights to the working class - our focus is on developing that ideology....... I have not been underground from the people. I am only underground from the feudalistic elements and its royal army. In villages where people are free, I stay freely too. I meet my family, my children and my wife......... I believe that in a short while, Nepal will be a democratic republic....... The king I think will either be executed by the people's court or he might be exiled. ..... The king might be finished or he might flee...... there should be free and fair elections for the new constitution, and the compromise would happen when everyone is ready to follow the verdict of this election...... But time has moved forward... The king doesn't have that space now....... the drama of the so-called municipal elections - the whole world saw it as the eighth wonder of the world.........now the path the king has taken, there is no space for compromise with him........ after the steps he has taken between 1 February and now, we don't see any space for compromise....... the path that he has taken is the road to hell.......the agenda that the king is moving with, he is negating the possibility of compromise.......
Viewpoints: 'What I want for Nepal' BBC News, UK
King to go, Nepal rebel says
Victory in Nepal is within our grasp, say Maoist rebels
IMF asks Nepal to restore peace Xinhua, China
Amnesty Calls for Urgent Action in Nepal OhmyNews International, South Korea
Review Nepal's participation in UN peace keeping: Amnesty Intl
Guerrillas kidnap 151 civilians in mid-western Nepal
Foreign criticism welcome in modern diplomacy: Dr Thapa
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