A source is the material from which the content of constitutional law is derived. The syllabus lists six:
3.1 The Constitution and Its Amendment
The primary source is the constitutional document itself — in Nepal, the Constitution of Nepal (2015), with its Preamble, 35 Parts, over 300 Articles and 9 Schedules. The amendment procedure is part of the constitution's own law because the constitution can change only as it allows: under Article 274, an amendment bill on the fundamentals of the Constitution is presented in either house of the Federal Parliament and published for public perusal within 30 days; most amendments require endorsement by two-thirds of the existing members in both houses; bills altering provincial boundaries or Schedule-6 provincial powers must be forwardedto the Provincial Assembly for consensus, and if a majority of provincial assemblies reject the bill, it is void; the approved bill is then authenticated by the President within fifteen days. At the unamendable core, clause (1) of Article 274 protects Nepal's self-rule, sovereignty, territorial integrity and the sovereignty vested in the people — an explicit entrenchment clause. Amendments, once made, become part of constitutional law itself (the constitution in force is always "as amended").
3.2 Statutes
Constitutional law is fleshed out by ordinary statutes exercising constitutional powers: election laws (Federal Parliament Election Act), laws on the Supreme Court's procedure and jurisdiction, the Act governing the functioning of the Constitutional Council, legislation implementing directive policies, and — repeatedly litigated — laws that limit rights (so that courts must test their reasonableness). Statutes are the workhorses: the constitution fixes the frame; statutes fill the rooms.
3.3 Secondary (Subsidiary) Legislation
Delegated legislation — rules, regulations, orders, by-laws made under statutory authority — can raise grave constitutional questions: whether the delegation was excessive (the delegated legislation must stay within the parent statute's limits, or be ultra vires), whether it invades fundamental rights, and whether it trenched on provincial or local competences in the federal scheme. Nepal's federal transition has been a workshop of such litigation: federal rules meeting provincial and local legislation under the Local Government Operation Act-era framework.
3.4 Judicial Decisions
Constitutional interpretation builds constitutional law: decisions on judicial review of statutes, on the scope of rights, on federal conflicts, on the President's and governors' discretions, become part of the living constitution. Nepal's Supreme Court, exercising original and review jurisdiction, has shaped constitutional law through landmark decisions — on the reinstatement of dissolved legislatures under successive constitutions, on citizenship, on inclusion, on the constitutionality of statutes and of constitutional amendments themselves (the doctrine that amendments must not destroy the constitution's basic architecture is a global doctrine debated in Nepali case law as
well). Constitutional conventions on judicial restraint, stare decisis and constitutional avoidances all operate through this source.
3.5 Custom and Convention
• Custom: long-standing practices that harden into law — parliamentary practice, royal-then- presidential ceremonial usage; customary institutions recognized by the constitution itself (Nepal's recognition of customary institutions of local governance and the guthi tradition is one echo).
• Conventions: non-legal rules of constitutional behaviour enforced by politics, not courts — the constitution's "unwritten etiquette." Nepal's examples: the practice that the President acts on the advice of the Council of Ministers in matters where the text speaks of the President's powers; consultative practices in appointing officials; the tradition (now statute-backed) of all- party consensus on major constitutional questions. Dicey's dictum applies: conventions ensure that the legal machinery works as the electorate expects; breach of convention is a political, not a legal, wrong.
3.6 Literature of Constitutional Experts/Scholars
Works of jurists — classic (Dicey's Law of the Constitution, Wheare's Federal Government, Jennings' The Law and the Constitution, Kelsen's theory of the basic norm) and Nepali (the commentaries of Singh, Dhungana, Bashyal, Gyawali, Thapa and others on each successive Nepali constitution) — are persuasive sources: not binding, but routinely cited by counsel and courts to interpret and evaluate constitutional arrangements. Scholarly literature supplies the vocabulary (constitutionalism, judicial review, basic structure) with which Nepali constitutional law thinks and argues.
Hierarchy to remember for the examination: Constitution (as amended) → statutes → secondary legislation, all subject to judicial interpretation, supplemented by conventions and scholarly literature — custom and scholarship stand outside the enforceable hierarchy but inside the living constitution.