What Nepali Congress Party Meant by Judiciary, Army, & Bureaucracy Independence?
THT Online
What Nepali Congress Party Meant by Judiciary, Army, & Bureaucracy Independence?
American Chronicle:
Prakash Bom
August 16, 2008
First of all, congratulations to Maoist party for winning premiership of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal with the overwhelming majority of votes of Constituent Assembly. International community has extended its congratulations promptly to the elected Prime Minister Maoist chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal. Both presidential and premiership electoral processes have been historic in the contemporary democratic evolution of Nepal. As such people of Nepal and the international community hope for the best in creating a new democratic Nepal that can fully be overseen with the norms and principle of democracy and the rule of law.
People of Nepal have given an opportunity to Maoist party to lead the government with the benefit of doubt that as elected political party regardless of its political ideology or tactic for transforming nation from its feudal Hindu royalist governing values to the federal democratic republic to create a new democratic Nepal. Objectives for accomplishing such destination have been clearly mandated. But the challenges are yet to be addressed and they can only be addressed through the legislations with the ballots of Constituent Assembly, which will through the electoral processes eventually compile the new constitution of Nepal.
That is to say, with the mandate of people to lead the government Maoist party cannot overrule both the political consensus and the ballots of Constituent Assembly for any government assessment. The past government practice as such must be abolished, for instance, party dominated political, diplomatic, judiciary, academic, military, governmental or corporate CEO appointments without the Parliamentary hearing for scrutiny and ballot. There are many political parties, their leaders and cadres, particularly in NC, who object such process as cumbersome that restricts their unaccountable and easy grabs of power, which encourages corruptions.
Therefore, unless in all levels of government the power is positioned democratically no accountability can be established in a feudal society like ours where work ethic is forsaken by default. On the contrary, the process in democracy is to make all accountable under the rule of law. Otherwise, the appalling corruptions, lawlessness, and impunity will overrule democracy. The cessation of such socio-political and economic behaviors cannot be ascertained by force as during the Maoist People's War or by current formation of a paramilitary style Young Communist League (YCL) political organization. But it can only be addressed through the formation of legislations that respect basic human rights, and civil liberty of people of Nepal.
Therefore, the body of judiciary that is formed through arbitrary cabinet appointments without the Parliamentary hearing cannot eventually establish its independence because the judges who are appointed by the political party in power without the ballots of Parliament cannot be accountable to people and the nation. That's why the feudal Nepal has had been governed by the practice of impunity. Therefore, except for Supreme Court judges under the federal government system the state and local judges must be on the general election ballot for people to elect them.
The corruption in judiciary in all level can only be ceased through the establishment of an electoral democratic system that can make judges accountable to people and the nation for justice. Then only the judiciary independence can be ascertained. The current system of judiciary (except for recent improvements that the Supreme Court of Nepal has made) in all levels has earned no accountability for judiciary independence. It has been one of the defamed institutions of feudal Nepal. The new system of judiciary must therefore be restructured under the federal government system.
Similarly, the fundamental objective of military of a nation is to establish national security with the practice of military professionalism and expertise. Rarely, under the emergency the military can oversee the rule of law and violate the human rights. But if it had done and is still its organizations are administered undemocratically, for example high ranking officers' license to keep their domestic helpers (pipas) as military low ranking personnel, then it cannot neither establish independence nor institutional professionalism. If this is what NC wants military carry on with its status qua for military to have independence then it is pathetic. But the current democratic changes must have been challenging for military to democratize its upper caste dominated hierarchical organization with the demands of inclusive democracy.
For example, the appointment of the chief of military and all other high-ranking generals must be scrutinized by the Parliament hearing for their approval. Therefore the government cabinet cannot finalize the appointments of the chief of military staffs without the Parliamentary hearing for approval. Otherwise, the military cannot keep up with its professionalism and independence. In order to make military professionally independence the internal military administration for human resource must be democratically institutionalized for the assessment that is fair and free of influence either of the internal military hierarchy or any political party per se.
Similarly, if the bureaucrats of a democratic nation can play by the rule to establish bureaucracy in order to serve people and the nation then such a nation can achieve a high level of bureaucratic standard and work ethic to ascertain the independence of bureaucracy – meaning people and nation can rely on the workings of bureaucracy. This has had never happened in the history of Nepali bureaucracy. Nepali bureaucrats are the most corrupt and are the ones who have abused power through their own network of impunity. Political leaderships have failed to break bureaucrats' network helplessly having been caught up with it. Therefore, how on the earth the bureaucracy of Nepal as such can ascertain independence without restructuring it completely as per the structure of the federal government system. Having bureaucracy as such the federal government system will bring any change.
Therefore, the entire bureaucracy must be restructured in order to implement the federal government system. The centrally controlled public commission must be restructured on the state basis. The huge number of current government employees must be relocated in the state and local governments as per their status of residence. This means a central government employee cannot be the employee of either state or local government. The employment status of employees of central, state and local governments must be separated as per the bureaus of different governments.
It is important to note that under the federal government system the local government's fundamental objective is to serve the local constituencies, not necessarily in the interest of the central government but in the interest of local government. States too are primarily governed with interest of their respective state. Therefore, central government's policies must address the local and state governments' overall interests for their socio-political and economic developments to achieve certain goal and standard.
For example, it will be premature for central government to implement the scientific distributions of land at this point without restructuring the state under the federal government system because it is only the local and state governments, which can implement such a policy in the grass root level. The responsibility of implementing such a central government's policy is of the state and local governments. It will be the same for all central government's policies such as free pre-primary to high school education and free access to basic health care to be implemented in local and state government levels with the incorporated funds of the central, state and local governments.
The chance for political rhetoric as such is greater to mislead the nation if the political leaderships in both government and opposition fail to take the responsibility seriously in restructuring the state that can transform nation's socio-political and economic values to make our judiciary, military and bureaucracy independent and professional. It is certain as professional institution Nepal Army under the central government can ascertain its accountability and independence. But for judiciary and bureaucracy to achieve that goal the entire nation has to be transformed with the restructuring of the state under the federal government system. Their current state of affair per se has long history of defame unlike what NC leaderships have rhetorically cautioned.
American Chronicle:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/viewByAuthor?authorID=2864