LAW5408 Election Law — Unit 1: Basic Concept of Election Law

Unit 1: Basic Concept of Election Law

1.1 Concept, Meaning, and Importance of Election and Election Law

Election = the institutionalised choice — the people’s selection of their governors by free, fair and periodic voting (the democratic legitimacy’s only renewable source: sovereignty resides in the people — the Constitution’s Article 2 — and the election is that sovereignty’s exercise, Article 4’s “people’s competitive multi-party democratic system”). Election law = the whole body of rules that makes the choice real: the franchise’s definition (who votes), the candidacy’s terms (who may stand), the system’s design (how votes become seats), the administration’s machinery (who runs it), the campaign’s discipline (money, speech, conduct), and the justice’s remedies (disputes, offences, tribunals — Unit 7). The importance (the exam’s list): (1) the government’s democratic authorisation; (2) the accountability’s clock (the periodic verdict); (3) the representation’s promise (Unit 3); (4) the peace’s alternative (the ballot over the bullet — Nepal’s own lesson); (5) the rights’ exercise (ICCPR 25’s three-part guarantee: vote, be elected, participate); and (6) the rule of law itself (the loser’s submission to the counted result).

1.2 Development of the Election System in Nepal

The ladder (the exam’s tour — dates well-established):

1. The first stirrings: the 1948 Government of Nepal Act’s restricted franchise (the elite’s first taste) and the 1951 Revolution’s promise of adult franchise.
2. The first general election (2015 B.S./1959) — the adult-franchise election (Nepali Congress’s majority; the first transfer by ballot) — then the 1960 royal takeover’s interruption.
3. The Panchayat era (1962–1990): the 1962 Constitution’s partyless Rastriya Panchayat (the class-and-organisation constituencies; the 1980 referendum on the panchayat-vs-party question — the choice by counting, but not the competition).
4. The democratic restoration (1990): the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 2047 — the multiparty constitutional monarchy with the independent Election Commission and the single-member FPTP House; the elections of 2048 B.S. (1991), the 2051 (1994) mid-term, and the 2055 (1999) cycle (the era’s litigation — the prescribed cases’ cluster, Unit 7).
5. The conflict-and-transition era: the 2062/63 People’s Movement; the Interim Constitution 2063; the first Constituent Assembly (2064/2008 — the first mixed system: 240 FPTP + 335 PR + 26 nominated), the second CA (2070/2013) — and the Constitution 2015.
6. The federal republic’s system: the three-tier elections of 2017 and 2022 (the 165+110 HoR, the 59-seat National Assembly’s indirect college, and the 753 local levels — Unit 2’s detail) under the 2015 Constitution’s articles (84–87, 222–223, 245–247, 286) and the 2073–2074 statute family (Unit 5); the next federal cycle due 2027.
   The pattern to name: the franchise’s widening (the elite → all adults of 18), the system’s evolution (partyless → FPTP → mixed parallel with inclusion quotas), and the administration’s maturation (the EC’s constitutional entrenchment).

Model Questions

1. Define election and election law, and explain their importance in a democracy. (10)
2. Trace the development of the election system in Nepal from 1948 to the present. (15)
3. “The history of Nepal’s elections is the history of its democracy.” Discuss. (10)
4. Short notes: (a) The 2015 B.S. general election; (b) The partyless Panchayat polls; (c) The 2008 mixed system; (d) The three-tier elections. (4×5)

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📚 Get the complete notes: Download the full Election Law PDF (all units) — Law Info Nepal Original Notes Series.