By Ranju Kafle
Kathmandu, Feb. 3: Defenders of the writ petitions filed against the dissolution of the House of Representatives (HoR) continued their pleading in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Attorney General Agni Prasad Kharel and former Attorney General Sushil Panta, who is a senior advocate, pleaded on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers and the Office of the President today.
They claimed that the Prime Minister has an inherent power to dissolve the House of Representatives in a parliamentary system.
“A country adopting the Westminster system always has reservations for the Prime Minister, he can dissolve the House for fresh mandate,” they argued.
The advocates defending the Prime Minister’s move to dissolve the House said that the parliamentary norms and values, past practices and precedents allowed the Prime Minister to take the strong move he took for political stability in the country.
“It is a quite natural step in a parliamentary system, the Constitution needs correction if lapses are found,” they added.
According to them, the Constitution needs to be explained according to the concept of parliamentary governing system in the country.
Attorney General Kharel began the pleading on Tuesday and claimed that the Westminster system allows the Prime Minister to dissolve the House.
Kharel claimed that several Articles of the Constitution are related to the House dissolution.
“Articles 76, 85 and 91 have the provisions of dissolution,” he said.
He also said that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had not lost vote of confidence in the parliamentary party of the ruling Nepal Communist Party.
The dissolution also intends to end the political crisis and maintain discipline within the ruling party.
Kharel said that in the elections, the people would punish the Prime Minister if he was wrong.
Similarly, senior advocate Panta said that the court should keep the previous parliamentary practices in notice to elaborate the provisions in the Constitution if they were not clear.
He also claimed that the Constitution in a parliamentary system always gives the Prime Minister the right to dissolve the House and go for fresh mandate.
“What is talked is not important, but what has been written in the Constitution is an important thing for the court,” he added.