14.3 Doctrine of Harmonious Construction

The doctrine: the Constitution is a single instrument — its provisions must be read together, so that each is given effect and none is reduced to nullity. Where two provisions conflict on a literal reading, the court adopts the construction that harmonises both; a reading that makes one clause destroy another is presumed wrong. The rule flows from the presumption that the constitution-maker legislated coherently. The Nepali applications (the exam's examples): Fundamental rights with directive principles: Part 3 and Part 4 read as floor and ceiling, not rivals (Unit 10) — the Court expanding rights by the directives' light rather than treating Article 55's non-justiciability as a wall; The three-tier competences with the cooperation principles: the schedules (Articles 57– 58) with the cooperative-coexistence-coordination triad (Article 232) — concurrent powers read as shared, not zero-sum; Rights clauses among themselves: property (Article 25) with the land-reform exception (25(4)); religious freedom (26) with secularism's protection formula; the environment right's express development-balance clause (30(3)) — the Constitution's own pre-cooked harmonisations.