Minister takes right step
The
Himalayan Times
22 March
2018
Minister
takes right step
The Oli led government has been
expanded for the third time. Nevertheless, the government is yet to take its full
shape. It was widely expected that the Federal Socialist Forum- Nepal (FSF-N)
would join the government during the third Cabinet expansion. However, it did
not happen owing to FSF-N’s stand for written agreement on the constitution
amendment before joining the leftist government. Likewise, the Ratriya Janata
Party-Nepal (RJP-N) was also considering joining the Oli-led government if the
government agreed to amend the constitution beforehand as per its demands. Surprisingly,
both the FSF-N and RJP-N were dead against PM K.P.Oli before the provincial and
federal elections as Oli had taken a firm stand against constitution amendment.
There is a provision that all
ministers and bureaucrats are mandated to make their properties public.
However, judges were, until now, not obligated to do so. Newly appointed Minister
of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Sher Bahadur Tamang has been the
first minister to announce that he would make it mandatory for judges to
disclose their assets “Judges should disclose their property details, says law
minister (THT,March 20, Page 2). He is even prepared to change the existing law,
if needed, to force judges to do so. In fact, according to the existing
Judicial Council Act, judges are required to submit their property details at
the Judicial Council which keeps them confidential. Minister Tamang argues that
this new provision will make judges transparent and more professional.
Nevertheless, unless the new
government develops an effective monitoring mechanism to regularly monitor the
status of the declared assets by assigning this job to one of its existing
monitoring wing, the purpose of making the assets public of senior level public
post holders, elected representatives and judges does not bear any weight.
Rai
Biren Bangdel
Maharjgunj
