Many political, economic, social and cultural issues were raised during the 2006 People’s Movement and CA elections. While political parties and various organisations had raised issues at the organisational level, individuals on their own also had raised their issues. Madhes, Tharuhat, and Janajati and indigenous issues came out during various movements. The CA committees tried to institutionalise these issues by including them in the constitution.

The concept papers and preliminary draft papers are prepared after serious study and many discussions. To conduct in-depth studies in new issues and to seek Nepal’s uniqueness in view of international experience and practice is not an easy task. Despite this, the committees have crossed this hurdle and prepared their reports. All the committees have included their respective issues in their reports. Sometimes, this has resulted in long reports. For example, the report of the Committee for Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles is 569 pages long, which is the longest report in the CA. on the other scale, the report prepared by the Committee for Determining the Structure of the Legislative Body is only 113 pages long.

The Constitutional Committee, the most important committee in the CA, took to voting to settle many issues. This voting in the Committee with the responsibility to prepare the first draft of the constitution reflects the differences in the constitution-drafting process.

The Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Minorities and Marginalised Communities spent most of its time looking for definition. The NC and UML which believe in the separation of powers became suspicious when the UCPN(M) proposed that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court could be appointed from outside the judicial system and the parliament will be the final interpreter of the constitution. In the voting that took place after the UCPN(M) did not budge from its instance, it got the majority votes, and other parties’ differing opinions were included in the final draft submitted to the CA.

The Committee for Determining the Form of Government suffered many problems due to lack of clarity in its regulations. The article 78 of the regulations states “the majority decision of the present members in the meeting shall be the official decision of the committee, and in case of equal votes, the chairperson’s will be the deciding vote”. In the voting for form of government and electoral systems, the outcomes were not as anticipated by the regulations. None of the proposal of the UCPN(M), UML, NC, and Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party got a majority, and this led to the dilemma of whether the proposal receiving the highest votes should be the official or not.

The Committee chairperson Shambhu Hajara Dushad has said regarding the efforts to resolve the deadlock, “Regarding the concept paper and the preliminary draft, 12 informal meetings were held, including in the presence of the top leadership of the major three parties, to resolve the outstanding issues unanimously and submit the concept paper and the preliminary draft to the CA. however, I would like to report to the CA the failure to give a consensus document by including the views of all the members while respecting the wishes of the people and preamble of the Interim Constitution despite serious efforts”.

The Committee for Determining the Base of Cultural and Social Solidarity did not get sufficient time to study the suggestions due to the volume and nature of suggestions. “The suggestions from the general people and various organisations were related to the various committees; therefore, extra time was needed as some difficulties arose while studying the suggestions”, states the report. It further states, “Within the stipulated time period, the Committee had to define its working area and activities, identify experts and invite them, prepare questionnaires and analyse the suggestions from these questionnaires as well as suggestions from other media, and only then prepare the concept paper and preliminary draft, which left insufficient time for detailed discussion and study. Due to the novel nature of some of the issues of the Committee, there was felt a lack of reference materials”.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of Minorities and Marginalised Communities had to contend with complex work and limited available time. “The Committee had about five months to submit its concept paper and preliminary draft report to the CA. the issues within its ambit were very new and complex.” The report further states, “There was lack of reference materials in the subjects within the Committee’s scope of work. It was a challenge to prepare the draft report within the stipulated time after consulting and analysing the views of the general public, representative organisations and institutions and other stakeholders and regulatory bodies.”

The Committee for Determining the Structure of the Legislative Body remained cognizant of the challenge to study and draft reports based on a comparative study of world’s systems in a succinct manner. The Committee’s report states, “The concept paper does not include discussion on formal theoretical literature, historical development regarding its subject matter and comparative study of experiences worldwide, which would only make the report complex and unwieldy”.

The Committee on Natural Resources, Financial Rights and Revenue Sharing has reported of many issues regarding the utilisation and management of natural resources. It further states, “There are many technical and sensitive issues within the ambit of the Committee’s work: the issue of financial rights and revenue sharing after the country transforms into a federation from a unitary state; the need to ensure the access of the people over the natural resources; and sustainable, effective utilisation and management of the resources”.

The Committee faced problems mainly due to the issue of state restructuring and form of legislative bodies not being finalised. The report adds, “The issue of state restructuring and form of legislative bodies does not fall into the area of the Committee’s work and these issues have not been finalised yet and which did create some confusion; however, this draft is only provisional and will only be final after the relevant Committee settles the issues, so with this understanding, the Committee has submitted its draft and concept paper envisioning a three-tiered federal, provincial, and local level structure”.

The Committee for Determining the Structure of Constitutional Bodies states that it had to spend time to identify its working area and the area being new added some complexity in its work. “The Committee had to spend much of its time to identify the constitutional framework and its structure required for governance. There was consensus on the need to form constitutional bodies that act as watchdogs on the work of the government are transparent and accountable to the people, but also the need to form separate commissions were identified based on the need to end prevalent caste, regional, class, gender, lingual and cultural discrimination, and to ensure proportional inclusion of these people and, based on the concept of social justice, provide equal opportunity in political, social, economic, educational spheres as well as in the state structures, which added complexity to the novel issues at hand.”

The Committee has also mentioned the difficulty of identifying its responsibility. Regarding its difficulty, it states, “It was extremely challenging to prepare this concept paper as it needed to incorporate the suggestions of the people, representative organisations, relevant stakeholders and institutions, and opinions of experts, against the historic background of the country and the experience of democratic exercises in other countries”.

The National Interest Preservation Committee faced a different challenge in its work of identifying its responsibility and preparation of its report. The report states, “Suggestions were asked from the public through public media; however, limited reach of these media to the public resulted in low number of suggestions. The 40 public opinion collection teams were limited to the questionnaires instead of household visits, which has resulted in a sampling effect in the preparation of the report. The Committee also experienced the inadequacy of physical and technical resources and limited manpower in the Committee while preparing the draft report and the preliminary concept paper”.

The Committee has reported in its report that it experienced problems due to lack of clear guidelines and standards before it started its work which resulted in slow work performance; lack of skilled, experienced and experts while preparing the draft and preliminary concept reports; and unavailability of resources and references materials on time.

The Constitutional Committee has mentioned that the stipulated time was not sufficient in view of the variety and sensitivity of the issues. The Committee’s report states, “It was not possible to reach every VDC and wards while collecting public opinions during the visits as there was very limited time. Therefore, with these limitations in mind, the concept paper cannot be claimed to be complete in every respect. Also, the available secretariat, physical resources, and manpower were not sufficient”.

Despite repeated amendments in the CA calendar, the Committee for Restructuring and Distribution of State Power had difficulty submitting its report. “State restructuring and distribution of state power is a challenging issue. It was not possible to complete this task without clarification on theoretical concepts from specialists and technical help and suggestions. Since the Committee’s work is a subject of enormous public interest and failure to submit its concept reports and preliminary draft on time and resultant amendments in the CA calendar has been well known to the general public through various media. It is natural to take a long time to discuss every issues within the stipulated timeframe”, reports the Committee chairperson Lokendra Bista. He adds, “The Committee had responsibility for state restructuring and distribution of state power, which are very important issues and also new for us. In addition, the concept paper and draft had to represent the concerns and ambitions of the people while at the same time reaching a consensus on various views of the political parties and diverse views, concerns, and values of the honourable members of the Committee through discussion and dialogue”.

The Committee also could not receive enough suggestions in comparison to the distributed questionnaires. The report adds, “During public opinion collection process, oral suggestions could not be recorded, sufficient questionnaires could not be distributed at the local level and even among those not all provided suggestions”. It further describes the difficulty in writing reports from not being able to hold extensive discussions with invited experts and insufficient suggestions from the public as the media does not reach the general public.

Thus, every committee experienced problems in its own way though the Committee for Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles has not mentioned any problems and challenges it faced in its report.