The Secretariat of Nepal's Constituent Assembly, the Nepal Law Society and International IDEA held a three-day orientation programme in October 2008 in Kathmandu for Constituent Assembly (CA) officials from different parties on “How the Constituent Assembly Works.”

Constituent Assembly Chair, Subash Chandra Nemwang, commented that officials lack the knowledge and experience to make a new constitution and that the orientation programme “should be geared towards building the capacity of CA and government officials.”

Hassen Ebrahim, former CEO of the South-African Constituent Assembly addressing Nepali audience
Photo ©: Krishna Man Pradhan/IDEA

Agni Kharel, a CA member from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) underlined the importance of such training if the new constitution is to be drafted within the stipulated two year time frame. Hassen Ebrahim, the former head of the South African CA shared lessons from the constitution-making process in his country. Participants were interested in to know how a number of languages were accommodated in the South African Constitution. “The constitution recognizes languages as not only being equal but also promotes languages like Gujarati which belongs to people of Indian descent. Similarly, Africans belonging to minority communities are accommodated and respected in the constitution”, Mr Ebrahim said.

Yash Ghai, former Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly of Kenya, compared the constitution writing processes in Nepal, Kenya and South Africa. He focused on the Kenyan experience of organizing public participation and consultation and, in this context, emphasized the need to make the constitution understandable and readable to the people: “I think if you want public consultation or feedback, it is important not to just issue two hundred pages of legal text. People won't understand it.” He went on to recommend the inclusion of explanatory notes which were much easier to follow than the legal text.

The participants discussed the crucial role of CA officials in supporting the process and put forward recommendations to strengthen the role of CA staff in:

• coordinating between the political parties, CA members, security forces, government, judiciary and other stakeholders;
• collecting information as requested by CA committees;
• identifying experts, advisors and other necessary staff; and
• carrying out report writing and documentation of the process.

The orientation was part of the International IDEA project Supporting Constitution Building in Nepal.