LAW5303 Constitutional Law-II — Unit 7: Constitutional Amendment, Constitutional Functionaries and Political Party — Political Parties; Constitutional Bodies; Amendment of the Constitution and Basic Structure Doctrine

Unit 7: Constitutional Amendment, Constitutional Functionaries and Political Party — Political Parties; Constitutional Bodies; Amendment of the Constitution and Basic Structure Doctrine

1. Political Parties (Articles 269–270)

1. The constitutional status: parties as constitutional organs (not mere private associations) — the “multi-party, competitive” system’s constitutionalization (Article 74’s form of governance) and the election-finance-and-registration regime’s objects;
2. The regulatory machinery (Articles 269–270): registration with the Election Commission; the requirement of a democratic party constitution (the internal-democracy condition — parliamentary-party and central-committee structures; the inclusive-representation requirements in candidacies: Article 84(2)’s closed-list inclusion groups and 84(8)’s one-third women rule as the parties’ constitutional duties); the EC’s registration-and-election-conduct supervision (Article 246); state election funding’s transparency;
3. The party-discipline framework: the floor-crossing rule (the party-expulsion vacation of seats — Article 89(5); the provincial mirror — Article 180(5)); the whips’ confidence-and-money-vote discipline (the Article-100 confidence machinery run through parties);
4. The restrictions: parties and candidates barred from the communal-and-separatist lines (the Friendly-Relations analogue of the electoral law; the constitution’s harmony-and-nationality clauses); the dissolution-grounds for unconstitutional parties (the functional reading of the registration regime);
5. The exam’s evaluation: parties as the constitution’s “transmission belt” — the inclusion quotas re-making the party system from within (the 2017-and-after assemblies as the most inclusive in Nepali history — the data to state generally); the internal-democracy gap (the “party oligarchy” critique — the leader-centric nomination practice vs. the constitutional command).

2. Constitutional Bodies (the accountability-and-integrity architecture)

The appointment machinery — the Constitutional Council (Article 284): the high-offices’ recommending body (the CJ, the chiefs/members of the constitutional bodies, the officials of the police-and-army command families) — the council’s cross-branch composition designed to de-politicize appointments (its composition to be described functionally from the Council’s constitutional role; the CC’s delays-and-quorum controversies as the practice critique); the President appoints on its recommendation; the tenure-and-protection pattern common to all: 6 years, no reappointment (except member-to-chief), impeachment-only removal (Article 101), salary protection

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