Interaction program on Draft Integrated Election Bill
The NLS has been working with the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN). Recently a project was completed with the ECN in cooperation with the IFES/USAID to support the reforms in the election governance. One of the components of that was to reform election related laws and prepare/draft an integrated election law.
At present, there are scores of Acts, Rules, Guidelines regarding the administration of election. This has made the process very complication.
Therefore, with the objective of simplifying and integrating the election laws, the NLS carried out this program, which has resulted in the production of draft integrated election bill that has combined 11 different Acts and dozens of other rules.
The draft was subsequently passed by the Election Commission of Nepal. The draft which was already adopted by the ECN is currently under the consideration of the government.
In this connection, the NLS has organized various programs to disseminate the features, needs and justification for the integrated election law. All those programs were conducted under the leadership of the ECN and where the Chief Election Commissioner presented the highlights and basic features of the draft law.
An interaction was first organized with the Political Leaders of all major parties on 30 August 2023. Altogether 40 participants were participated in the program including senior central level leaders from political parties represented in the federal parliament. Likewise, an interaction program was organized on 15 August 2023. Government stakeholders actively participated in the program including chief secretary, secretaries, joint secretaries, registrar and chief registrar of the Supreme Court, General Secretary and secretaries of the federal parliament and other concerned officials. Similarly, an interaction program was organized with the parliamentarians including chief whips, whips and other leaders of the parliamentary parties of all major parties in the federal parliament on 26 July, 2023. Likewise, similar interaction program was organized with media experts from online, radio, TV, print on 28 August, 2023. Altogether 400 participants participated in the program. Feedbacks of the participants collected, complied and shared with the ECN and the government to enrich the proposed bill.
