5.4 Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances under the

Constitution of Nepal The design (five points): Legislature: bicameral Federal Parliament — House of Representatives (the confidence chamber) + National Assembly; legislates, controls the purse, questions ministers, unseats the government (Article 100). Executive: the President, as head of state, acts on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers (Article 66(2)); the Prime Minister commands the House's confidence and heads a Council of Ministers collectively responsible to the House (Articles 74–76). The executive's counter-checks: recommendation power over major presidential actions, agenda leadership, dissolution in the defined circumstances of Article 76(7). Judiciary: an independent hierarchy headed by the Supreme Court; the Chief Justice appointed on the Constitutional Council's recommendation, other judges through the Judicial Council; removal only by Article 101 impeachment; and the Court's power to review laws and executive acts for constitutional conformity — its check on both political organs (Units 13–14). Cross-cutting checks: treaty ratification (Article 279: two-thirds of both houses for treaties of peace and friendship, security and strategic alliance, boundaries, and natural resources and their distribution — no government can bargain away the nation by executive act); the emergency power (Article 273) itself checked — proclamation placed before both houses within a month, two-thirds approval to survive, three-month renewable extensions, core rights non-suspendable, bad-faith emergency acts compensable; the President's pardon (Article 276) checks judicial sentences; parliamentary privileges (Articles…