Public Awareness

Civil Liberty

First of all, political mindset and government mechanism must be clean to begin with:

Abolish the Current Government Practice:

• Must eradicate the current tradition of the governance that appoints government employees to administer the constituents of the state such as CDO, DSP, Judge and Attorney

• Electorates of each constituent must elect their own representatives for governing their constituent by forming constituent’s cabinet with the elected members of the assembly

• Constituent judges, attorney, sheriff (law enforce officer) must be elected by the electorates of the each constituent to run constituent court, office of attorney and police academy

• The contenders for these positions in each constituent’s legislative, executive and judiciary bodies must be the permanent resident of the constituent. The status of the permanent residence must be defined in the upcoming constitution.

• The centrally controlled government logistics must be abolished with the constitutional provision for decentralized autonomous constituency for the governance

Terminate the Current Tradition of the Arbitrary Appointments in the Central Government:

• All the government appointments (from the secretariats to the diplomats) in the central level of governance must follow steps of the electoral procedure in the House of Representatives

• First the cabinet must nominate the candidate (s) for the particular position to hearing and voting in the House of Representatives

• House of Representatives follow the steps of the Parliamentary hearing and voting with rigorous investigation to nominate the candidate (s) for the position

• As per the nomination (s) of the House of the Representatives the cabinet can only appoint the contender (s) to the position

Democratize the Political Parties:

• The political parties must democratize their intra-party organizations to participate in the multiparty system that will adopt the federal system of governance

• As we have astonished the world with the ‘peace accord’ we must also surprise the world with the fundamental essence of Democracy in our every day political practice

• We must put an end to the hierarchical and arbitrary political tradition of south Asian political parties by modernizing our intra-party organizations with the most democratic practice   

• Party that is not democratized with its intra-party organizations must consider this before it attempts to undermine the status of the Democratic nation

Upon these principles all Nepali people should be united in nation building and restructuring process. 

All Nepali people's civil liberty must be guaranteed and the civil rights must be protected in all levels of governments under Federal Governance Structures - regional, local and central governments.

All Nepali people should be free to change their residence from one state to other at their will; free to purchase and keep their properties in any local or regional states; free to seek occupation in any state; free to participate in any organization; and so forth as their civil liberty.

Under the civil rights protection all Nepali people should not be discriminated and obstructed from justice based on ethnic, religion, caste, gender difference. Constitution must protect the civil rights of all people of Nepal. 

Nepal people must have right to vote or elect their representatives from the local levels to the Parliament. There vote must count for all levels of elections and without their consent of vote none of the government bodies can be formed to govern the people arbitrarily.

Once the constitution of Nepal establishes aforesaid fundamental principles of the rights of people of Nepal as the legal document, the restructuring of the nation can begin to give people responsibility to govern their own constituency on their own through the practice of the federal electoral democracy under the federal governance structures. 

Overview of Federal Governance Structures:

Federal governance structure is the composition of the governments within governments. Structurally, the smallest governments at the bottom of the structure sustain the nation as the building blocks. These are the government units, which are constituted by the people for the people. Basically, the elected representatives of these units serve the people directly in their constituents managing public administration and services. These units are townships in the city governments and village assemblies in the county or district governments.

The representatives of the townships or village assemblies are elected among from the residence of the townships and villages of the assemblies to manage entire administration, services and developments. Within the townships or village assembly school district representatives are elected to manage the public school by forming school management committee and academic council. The basic responsibilities of these government units are residence property (real estate and land) management, property tax collections, sanitations, community police arrangement, public school, public library, public park and recreation management, and drinking water supply supervision.

Upon these units city and county or district government structures are built up. The mayors are the chiefs of the governments and the people directly elect them. Under the mayor the city and county or district cabinets are formed from the elected members of the assemblies. However the attorneys, judges, comptrollers, and sheriff (law enforcement officer) are directly elected. The city or county or districts governments have legislative, executive and judiciary branches under the assembly. But they do not have upper and lower houses. They legislate local regulations, run administration, law enforcement and justice, collect revenues - local taxes, federal taxes and sales taxes, plan fiscal budget and implement over all developments as per the minimum requirements of the state or regional governments’ regulations. 

The conglomerations or the city and county or district governments make the state or regional governments. The governors or the chief-ministers are the head of the state or regional government. The state cabinets are formed under the governors or chief ministers and people elect them directly. The state or regional governments have legislative, executive and judiciary branches. The state or regional attorneys, judges, comptrollers and law enforcement officers are elected. States have assembly but do not have upper and lower houses. They legislate state or regional regulations, policies and development spending; run state administration, form state or regional fiscal budget, planning and development and manage justice as per the minimum requirements of the federal government regulations, bills, and policies.

The union of the state or regional governments makes the federal or central government of the nation under the Federal Democratic Government System. The elected representatives of the constituencies of each state or regional government form the lower and upper houses of the Parliament. The people of constituency that they represent must elect both house representatives of the Parliament. There is no arbitrary political parties nomination provision for representatives of the upper house. Even the representatives are nominated for the upper house they must be the permanent resident of the state that they represent.    

The federal or central government’s principle responsibilities are to provide national security – defense management, form federal regulations and policies, establish foreign relations, plan developments and fiscal budget, and protect the constitution and justice.

The structure that allow people to govern from the bottom ‘grass-root’ level is the fundament to the federal governance structure. The successful example of this structure is the active ‘Community Forest’ management of Nepal. If legislators of interim Parliament are serious to have people participate in the nation building process then they must consider this provision of the federal government structure.

Regional governments are generally structured on the geographical economics (in regards to Canada and America) or ethnical socio-politics and economics (for example Switzerland). In Nepal we may have to have the mixed federation approach.

Local governments are structured on the basis of the population, socio-political, local economics and developments as per the need of the regional state government. The number of the local governments in the regional state government depends on the population.

Federalism-"Federal Electoral System"

Advocacy of federal political orders:

Under the federal electoral system of state affair the state is divided between sub-units and a center.  Unlike a centrally controlled state (such as feudal oligarchic, proletariat, or totalitarian state) sovereignty constitutionally depends on two territorial units – regional and central.

Citizens in the federal system have political obligations to two authorities – the local and the center units of the state. Electorates elect representatives for both units’ legislative, executive and judiciary bodies of the governments in one nationwide general election. 

State units at each level have final authority and can act independently of the others in some area. For example, a sub-unit of the state can exempt or increase the property tax on its residents independent of its central unit.  

Many regional socio-political, economic, cultural, ethnic and other unique local issues can be accommodated independently without the interference of the center unit of the state with common political order.

The allocation of the authority between the sub-unit and center may vary. Typically center has the powers regarding defense and foreign policy.  However, center unit generally mentors sub-units on overall national policies under the strict stipulations of the constitution of the nation with the sub-units’ participations in central decision-making bodies.

The federal system is the confederation of sub-units of a state in which a room for any form of dictatorship or centrally controlled system can hardly prevail. It is the keystone of the modern-day democracy. Its state organization methodology can help put up functional electoral governments systems. The simple analogy of such an organization method is of office file cabinet that has filing system for category and sub-category.

Federalism inherently gives sub-units of the state the power and responsibility with direct participations in the overall state managements.  Decentralization of power is the built-in process of the federalism.

The fundamental of federalism is the electoral process. No government positions are politically appointed without the certain free competition of electoral process direct or indirect.  

Feasibility of Federalism: 

Democracy has become a human need to live a dynamic socio-political and economic life with guarantee of the civil liberty and protection of the human rights. People’s movements, political revolutions, civil wars can bring the waves of democracy in a nation. But, how to institutionalize the waves of democracy in the government practice, it needs certain system or structure where practice of democracy can be inherently workable.

Therefore the most of the developed nations’ democratic system is based on federalism. Federalism under the Parliamentary democratic practice has established the direct election of the Prime Ministers by the popular votes of the electorates in country like Canada, Australia and New Zealand. To make federalism more feasible in the government practice these nations have eliminated the old Parliamentary system that allows the political party in majority in the lower house to nominate the Prime Minister. Such changes have given these nations a stable government for a term of the Prime Minister without the need of midterm elections.

If contemporary politics see the urgency to adopt federalism as the system to institutionalize democracy in Nepal then the Prime Minister of Nepal need to be elected directly by popular votes to form cabinet from the political party in majority or collision to have four or six years of stable government without the need of midterm elections.

However, the federalism system of democratic institutionalizations can still be viable if the contemporary Nepali politics like to adopt the old fashioned Parliamentary practice provided each sub-unit’s head of the cabinet or governor or constituent administration chief is elected directly by the popular vote for at least four years term.

It is essential in the federalism that the sub-units or local state governments must be stable to hold the nation together for law enforcement, justice and economic developments. In this case, whatever happens with politics of the center the democratic institutions of sub-units will not get adversely affected.

Is Socio-political Geography of Nepal Viable for Federalism?

Nepal is a country of diverse ethnicity spread over seventy five percent of mountainous territory. There are remote regions in the Himalayas and trans-Himalayas. There are more mountain regions in Nepal than regions with valleys and plains.

In order to create sub-units of the state we must consider the socio-political geography of Nepal that can evenly distribute the natural and human resources over all development of the nation. Overall human resources are the most essential to build and sustain the sub-units of the state with the functional democratic institutions.

Each sub-units of the state need a governor, a sub-unit judge, a sub-unit attorney, a sub-unit sheriff or law enforcement officer, mayors, members of assembly from the permanent residents of each sub-unit elected directly by the electorates of each sub-unit.

These elected representatives are the individuals who may come from different political parties will be responsible to build and sustain the democratic institutions of each sub-unit such as administration, assembly, court, and police academies.

Each sub-unit needs to have public school districts that will manage public school in the sub-unit. The electorates of the school district must elect the members of the public school council. Each school district council members in the sub-units of the state ought to be responsible for the school to meet the national standard of education.

Take for example, the recently introduced metropolitan police operation in the capital valley, which it seems organized with the centrally controlled method of governance by the Home Ministry.  Under the methodology of federalism it should have sub-units determined with the density of the population in each district of the metropolitan. The electorates of the metropolitan’s each sub-unit must elect the law enforce officer or sheriff to run the police operation in each sub-unit. The sheriff and all police personnel in the sub-unit must be the permanent resident of the metropolitan.  

Under the federal method of structuring metropolitan security system the elected sheriff of a sub-unit of the metropolitan must take the security responsibility of the citizens of his or her sub-unit as his or her primary responsibility.

The provision for such grass-root responsibilities in the federal structures of the government must be legislated in the constitution. The law enforcement (police) districts in the sub-unit of the state have security obligations to two authorities though primarily police districts are responsible to the police academy of the sub-unit.

This means the need for the abolition of the police headquarter of the capital valley with its centrally controlled mechanism under the hierarchical orders from the home ministry to the palace.

What state’s capital needs to do with police headquarter is to transform it to the national investigation bureau under the federalism to manage nation’s overall law and order, and national security investigations with the profound record keeping working structure.

This is how federalism helps democratic institutions develop pragmatic logistics in the sub-units of the state or in the grass-root level of governance.  It can accommodate all diverse socio-political or ethnical conditions of the sub-unit with decentralized electoral democratic methodology for the establishments.  

Dedication:
This web site www.nepalcivilsociety.org is dedicated to the Civil society of Nepal. It is to honor the work of all members of Civil Society of Nepal  who dedicated their lives to the Liberty of People of Nepal. The purpose of this web site is to promote the movement of Civil Society as part of Nepali culture with the objectives to protect civil liberty of people of Nepal through public awareness.

Individuals who are interested to contribute in processing information for Nepal Civil Society works on this site in English and Nepali are most welcome to join the design and development of this website. Please contact Anon Liberty at anon@nepalcivilsociety.org