14.1 Theory of Direct and Inevitable Effect of Fundamental Rights

The doctrine (the standing doctrine of constitutional litigation): a petitioner who challenges a law as unconstitutionally restricting fundamental rights must show that the law's operation has a direct and inevitable effect upon their own rights — not a remote, contingent or speculative injury. Where the effect is indirect or contingent, the challenger lacks locus standi in the classical model; the law's validity is not open to every bystander's abstract objection. The two sides (state both — the analytical answer): The discipline it supplies: it filters docket-flooding abstract challenges; it ties constitutional review to concrete injury; it keeps the Court out of advisory opinions; Its tension with the Nepali design: Article 133(1) grants any citizen standing to petition that a law unreasonably restricts fundamental rights — among the world's most open standing rules — and Article 133(2) adds the public-interest jurisdiction (LAW 303's PIL). The Court reconciles the two by degrees: direct-injury petitioners as of right; public-spirited petitioners where the matter is of genuine public concern; the direct-and-inevitable-effect inquiry doing the sorting work. The theory thus survives in Nepal not as a hard barrier but as an organising test of the seriousness and concreteness of the alleged violation.