KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Balendra Shah made an extraordinary move this month: his government called a Parliament session, then suspended it within 24 hours citing “special reasons,” and proceeded to push through ordinances including one on the long-deadlocked Constitutional Council Act and another on cooperatives.

The Constitutional Council had sat incomplete for eight months, blocking the appointment of a Chief Justice, election commissioners, and other key officials. Nepali Congress elected Bhishma Raj Angdembe as opposition leader on April 27, finally completing the six-member council.

Yet on the same day, the Cabinet chose the ordinance route rather than wait for Parliament, triggering fresh accusations that Nepal’s executive continues to treat the legislature as an obstacle to be bypassed rather than a partner in governance.

What exactly is an ordinance in Nepal’s constitutional system?

An ordinance is a temporary law issued by the President on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers when Parliament is not in session and the government believes that waiting for a regular legislative process would cause serious harm to the public interest. Think of it as the executive branch’s emergency power to fill a legal gap quickly.

Once issued, an ordinance carries the same legal force as an Act passed by Parliament. However, it is not permanent by default. It must be placed before both Houses of Parliament once a session convenes, and lawmakers then decide whether to pass it, reject it, or let it lapse.

The ordinance mechanism exists in many democratic systems precisely because Parliament cannot always be sitting, yet urgent legislative needs may still arise. The critical word is “urgent,” and therein lies the constant tension in Nepal’s politics: who decides what counts as urgent enough to bypass parliamentary debate?

Which article of the Constitution governs ordinances?

Article 114 of the Constitution of Nepal 2015 is the governing provision. Clause 1 states that when both Houses are not in session and immediate action is necessary, the President may promulgate an ordinance on the recommendation of the Council of Ministers.

Clause 2 lays down the life cycle of that ordinance: it has the same force as an Act; it must be tabled before Parliament once a session begins; if Parliament does not endorse it, it dies automatically; the President may revoke it at any time; and if neither happens, it lapses 60 days after the Houses begin sitting.

The article also requires that a replacement bill be introduced to convert an ordinance into a permanent law. If that bill is not passed within the 60-day window, the ordinance ceases to exist.

This 60-day deadline is routinely cited in Nepal’s political debates, as governments often fail to push the replacement bill through Parliament in time, leaving their own ordinances to expire without ever becoming law.

How does the ordinance process work step by step?

The process begins with the Council of Ministers deciding that legislation is urgently needed and that Parliament is not in session. The Cabinet formally recommends the ordinance to the President.

Within those 60 days, the government must introduce a replacement bill and get both chambers to pass it. If Parliament endorses the bill, the ordinance transitions into a permanent Act.

The Ministry of Law then drafts the text, which the President promulgates and publishes in the Nepal Gazette, at which point it becomes immediately effective as law. Once Parliament next convenes, the government must table the ordinance before the House.

From the first day of that parliamentary session, a 60-day clock begins. Within those 60 days, the government must introduce a replacement bill and get both chambers to pass it. If Parliament endorses the bill, the ordinance transitions into a permanent Act. If Parliament rejects it, or if the 60-day window closes without a vote, the ordinance simply ceases to have any legal effect.

At any point in this cycle, the President can also revoke the ordinance on the government’s recommendation, which is what has happened several times in Nepal when a new government came to power and wanted to undo its predecessor’s ordinances.

What was the history of ordinances before the 2015 Constitution?

Nepal’s experience with executive lawmaking predates the republic itself. During the Panchayat era before 1990, the king exercised near-absolute legislative power, so the question of executive ordinances operated differently from a parliamentary system.

After the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1990, the constitutional monarchy gave way to a system where Parliament held legislative primacy in theory, but governments still used ordinances fairly frequently during recesses.

The Interim Constitution of 2007, which guided Nepal through its transitional phase until the 2015 Constitution, also had ordinance provisions that were used by successive governments.

However, the pattern of systematic overuse and political manipulation of ordinances became especially pronounced after 2015, as the new federal republic settled into its governing rhythms and rival political forces began using executive lawmaking as a tool of partisan advantage rather than genuine legislative necessity.

The parliamentary research secretariat later documented that between 2015 and 2020, the number of ordinances issued outpaced, in some respects, the pace of regular legislation.

What happened during Ram Baran Yadav’s presidency regarding ordinances?

Ram Baran Yadav served as Nepal’s first President from July 2008 to October 2015, operating under the Interim Constitution of 2007 until the new constitution was promulgated in September 2015, which he signed into law. His tenure is remembered less for ordinance controversies and more for his interventionist role in protecting constitutional order.

Most notably, in May 2009, he blocked then-Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s attempt to dismiss Army Chief Rookmangad Katawal, a move that triggered Dahal’s resignation. Yadav was also called upon repeatedly to mediate government formation during long political deadlocks.

On ordinances, Yadav generally acted as a more restrained figure than his successor would prove to be. He used his position to push for constitutional drafting rather than to enable executive overreach.

His most consequential act was promulgating the 2015 Constitution on September 20, 2015, despite significant Madhesi protests and pressure from various quarters, cementing his legacy as a president who prioritized institutional stability over partisan gain.

How did Bidya Devi Bhandari’s presidency become entangled in ordinance controversies?

Bidya Devi Bhandari, who served as Nepal’s second president from October 2015 to March 2023, became one of the most controversial figures in the republic’s short history, largely because of her relationship with ordinances and her perceived alignment with her former party, the CPN (UML), and its leader KP Sharma Oli.

Constitutional lawyers and opposition politicians repeatedly accused her of a double standard: signing ordinances brought by Oli governments with unusual speed while delaying or blocking measures recommended by governments she appeared to oppose.

In 2017, for example, she held up an ordinance on medical education from the then Deuba government for weeks, only releasing it after pressure from civil society including hunger striker Dr. Govinda KC.

She also blocked nominations to the National Assembly sent by the outgoing Deuba government in February 2018, then immediately approved replacements sent by the incoming Oli government.

Critics described her presidency as less the ceremonial guardian of the constitution and more an active political player on one side of a partisan divide.

What was the Constitutional Council ordinance of December 2020 and why was it so damaging?

This is perhaps the single most consequential ordinance abuse in Nepal’s post-2015 history. The Constitutional Council is a six-member body chaired by the Prime Minister that recommends candidates for the Chief Justice, election commissioners, CIAA commissioners, and other vital positions.

The law at the time required five of six members to be present for a quorum. In December 2020, then-Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota and opposition leader Sher Bahadur Deuba boycotted council meetings to protest PM Oli’s increasingly autocratic behavior.

Unable to convene a legal meeting, Oli’s cabinet issued an ordinance on December 15, 2020, slashing the quorum requirement so that just three members could hold meetings and make decisions by majority. President Bhandari signed it the same afternoon. That evening, Oli convened the council with himself, the Chief Justice, and the National Assembly Chair, and pushed through 38 nominations to constitutional bodies.

Five days later, he dissolved the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court later reinstated the House, but the appointments largely stood, creating a constitutional gray zone that Nepal’s institutions still grapple with.

How many times was that Constitutional Council ordinance reissued?

The same ordinance was issued, revoked, and reissued repeatedly, becoming a symbol of Nepal’s dysfunctional legislative culture. Oli issued the first version on December 15, 2020.

When the Supreme Court reinstated the House in February 2021 and it became clear Parliament would not endorse the ordinance, the government reissued it on May 4, 2021, making 20 more constitutional appointments. Oli then dissolved the House again on May 22, 2021.

After the Supreme Court ordered Deuba’s appointment as prime minister in July 2021, the Deuba government revoked the ordinance entirely on July 18, just hours before the reinstated House convened. The replacement bill that would have permanently amended the Constitutional Council Act never made it through Parliament.

That legal vacuum, created by the cycle of ordinances, revocations, and failed replacement bills, is essentially the same void that the current Balen Shah government is now trying to fill with yet another ordinance in April 2026.

Over five years, the same legal question has been bounced around by multiple governments, none of which managed to resolve it through proper parliamentary process.

Did the Deuba government improve on Oli’s ordinance record?

Sher Bahadur Deuba came to power in July 2021 explicitly on the strength of the Supreme Court overturning what critics called Oli’s unconstitutional moves. The early expectation was that Deuba would restore parliamentary norms. What actually happened was more complicated.

Within a month of taking office, Deuba’s government issued an ordinance amending the Political Parties Act to lower the threshold for splitting a party from 40 percent of both the central committee and parliamentary party to 20 percent. This directly benefited leaders like Madhav Kumar Nepal who were breaking from UML to form CPN (Unified Socialist).

Many saw this as the Deuba government using the very tool it had condemned when Oli wielded it. The pattern of issuing ordinances to address problems that could be handled by Parliament, failing to convert them into permanent laws, and then watching them expire or being revoked, continued without meaningful reform.

A parliamentary research report published in 2022 and 2023 documented these recurring failures, concluding that ordinances had effectively become instruments of factional politics rather than emergency governance tools.

What made Bidya Bhandari’s handling of the citizenship ordinance so controversial?

The citizenship issue cuts to the heart of Nepal’s deepest political tensions: the rights of Madhesi communities and Nepali women married to foreign nationals. The Oli government had pushed Nepal Citizenship (First Amendment) Ordinance in May 2021, immediately after the second House dissolution, widely seen as a bid to shore up Madhesi party support for his weakening government.

The Supreme Court intervened to halt that particular process, ruling it politically motivated. However, the broader citizenship bill debate continued for years, eventually passing both Houses of Parliament under the Deuba government.

When the bill reached President Bhandari’s desk, she returned it to Parliament on August 14, 2022, with 15 points of concern, which is a constitutional right she had. Parliament passed it again without changes, but Bhandari still declined to sign it into law, effectively blocking legislation endorsed by the legislature.

Her critics noted she had shown no such reluctance when signing the same Oli government’s ordinances on citizenship earlier, revealing what they characterized as selective constitutionalism tailored to partisan preference.

What was the Gen Z movement and how did it affect Nepal’s constitutional bodies?

In September 2025, a wave of youth-led protests swept through Nepal, drawing comparisons to similar movements elsewhere in the world. Young Nepalis took to the streets demanding governance reforms, accountability for corruption, and an end to the entrenched political class’s stranglehold on state institutions. The protests escalated into serious unrest on September 8 and 9, 2025.

In the aftermath, President Ram Chandra Paudel dissolved Parliament on September 12, 2025, citing the instability. Fresh elections were held on March 5, 2026.

The dissolution had an immediate cascading effect: without a House in session, there was no Speaker, no Deputy Speaker, and no opposition leader, since the old Parliament’s leaders lost their positions when the House was dissolved.

The Constitutional Council, which requires these very figures as members, became completely dysfunctional. For the next seven months, no Chief Justice could be appointed, no election commissioner could be confirmed, and several other constitutional bodies remained in leadership limbo.

This is the structural vacuum that finally ended when Bhishma Raj Angdembe was elected opposition leader on April 27, 2026, formally completing the council’s membership.

What is the Constitutional Council and why does its composition matter so much?

The Constitutional Council is Nepal’s gatekeeper for its most important institutional appointments. Chaired by the Prime Minister, the six-member council also includes the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chairperson of the National Assembly, the leader of the main opposition party, and the Deputy Speaker.

Any vacancy in one of these positions can deadlock the entire council. The council recommends candidates for the Chief Justice, Supreme Court judges, the heads of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, the Election Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, the Women’s Commission and other constitutional bodies.

These are not minor appointments: they define whether Nepal’s accountability institutions function independently or become partisan outposts. When the council is deadlocked, as it was for seven months through early 2026, all these positions sit vacant, courts operate under acting officials, and anti-corruption investigations stall. This structural vulnerability makes the council a recurring political battlefield.

What did the Balen Shah government actually do with the Parliament session in April 2026?

The sequence of events raises serious constitutional propriety questions even if it may not be technically illegal. On April 21, the Cabinet recommended to President Paudel that Parliament be convened. The President accordingly summoned a session for April 30.

On April 23, the government recommended postponement, citing “special reasons.” The President duly issued a notice suspending the session. This had the immediate practical effect of ensuring that Parliament was not in session, which is the constitutional precondition for issuing ordinances under Article 114.

The Cabinet then decided to bring at least two ordinances: one on the Constitutional Council Act to resolve the long-standing legal vacuum around quorum and decision-making procedures, and one on cooperatives.

Constitutional expert Bipin Adhikari publicly stated that while it might not be explicitly prohibited, withdrawing a summoned Parliament specifically to enable ordinances is contrary to constitutional morality and undermines public trust in formal government processes, especially for a government that had campaigned on good governance as its primary agenda.

What exactly is the legal vacuum the new Constitutional Council ordinance is meant to fix?

The problem traces back to Oli’s 2020 ordinance. When Oli amended the Constitutional Council Act to allow meetings with a bare majority, then-President Bhandari signed it. After Deuba came to power, his government revoked the ordinance.

However, the revocation did not automatically restore the original 2010 Act’s provisions, because the replacement bill that would have permanently amended the law was never passed by Parliament. Several subsequent attempts to bring either a proper amendment bill or a stabilizing ordinance also failed.

In July 2025, President Ramchandra Paudel returned the Constitutional Council (Functions, Duties, Powers and Procedures) Amendment Bill to the House of Representatives for reconsideration, saying it is not in line with the spirit of the Constitution.

The bill, passed by both houses of the federal parliament and sent to the President for authentication on July 15, 2025, proposed significant changes to the process of appointing officials to constitutional bodies. However, President Paudel refused to authenticate the bill, citing constitutional concerns.

As of April 2026, Nepal is in a situation where the original law has elements that were supposed to be superseded, the superseding measures have all lapsed, and no one is entirely certain which legal framework actually governs the council.

The ordinance the Shah government has sent to the President is intended to cut through this accumulated tangle.

What did opposition parties say about the ordinance move?

The Nepali Congress was particularly pointed in its criticism. Party spokesperson Devraj Chalise stated publicly that it is not appropriate to suspend a parliamentary session in order to bring ordinances, and that the government must ensure Parliament functions rather than treat it as a procedural obstacle.

Senior leader Arjun Narsingh K.C. called the suspension of the Parliament session “unprecedented and surprising.”

The criticism carries some irony given that Congress itself has issued ordinances during its various tenures that drew similar complaints from others.

Senior leader Arjun Narsingh K.C. called the suspension of the Parliament session “unprecedented and surprising.” The opposition’s broader argument is that the Constitutional Council had finally become complete on April 27 with the election of opposition leader Angdembe, meaning the council itself could now function and begin making recommendations through the proper process, making the claimed urgency of the ordinance questionable.

The government’s counter-argument is that the legal uncertainty around the council’s operating rules is severe enough to warrant immediate clarification before any appointments are made, otherwise those appointments could later be challenged in court.

What appointments are now pending before the Constitutional Council?

After eight months of vacancy, the list of pending appointments is substantial. The most urgent is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which has been operating under Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla since Prakashman Singh Raut retired upon reaching the mandatory age limit.

The Supreme Court’s credibility is affected when it operates under an acting head for extended periods. Beyond the top judicial appointment, the council must fill at least one member position on the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, one member on the National Human Rights Commission and positions on the Women’s Commission.

The Judicial Council had already forwarded a roster of six Supreme Court judges eligible for the Chief Justice position: Sapana Pradhan Malla, Kumar Regmi, Hariprasad Phuyal, Manoj Kumar Sharma, Nahakul Subedi, and Til Prasad Shrestha.

History suggests the council is unlikely to follow strict seniority, having passed over senior candidates in the past, making the appointment process inherently political even when the mechanism finally resumes.

How does Nepal’s ordinance culture compare with the constitutional ideal?

Article 114 envisions ordinances as a narrow escape valve for genuine emergencies when the absence of law would cause immediate, serious harm and Parliament cannot be convened in time to address it.

The constitutional ideal is essentially this: something important breaks while Parliament is on recess, the government fixes it temporarily with an ordinance, Parliament reconvenes and converts it into a permanent law within 60 days.

The reality in Nepal has drifted so far from this ideal that it has almost inverted the original logic. Governments have suspended or dissolved Parliament in order to use the ordinance power, rather than using the ordinance power because Parliament happened to be unavailable. They have reissued the same ordinances multiple times after Parliament failed to convert them.

A parliamentary research report found that between 2015 and 2020 alone, 49 ordinances were issued but only 17 became permanent laws. Constitutional experts have argued that given Nepal’s constitution mandates Parliament be in session most of the year, the theoretical justification for frequent ordinances barely exists at all.

Are there any examples of ordinances that actually served the public good in Nepal?

Yes, and it is important not to reduce the entire ordinance history to political manipulation. Nepal’s Parliament Secretariat’s own research acknowledged that some ordinances addressed genuine legislative gaps during real emergencies.

The ordinances on acid attacks and sexual violence are frequently cited as examples where the urgency was real: cases of acid violence were surging, victims needed legal protection, and Parliament happened not to be in session.

Multiple governments issued these ordinances, though Parliament repeatedly failed to convert them into permanent laws before the 60-day window closed, requiring the same ordinance to be reissued again and again. Eventually, after several cycles, the legislation did become permanent law in 2022.

Investment-related ordinances issued ahead of investment summits have been defended by business community voices who said they removed legal hurdles for foreign investors in a timely way.

The point constitutional experts consistently make is not that all ordinances are bad, but that Nepal’s governance culture has made the exception into the rule, and that has genuine costs for parliamentary democracy and public trust.

What has President Ram Chandra Paudel’s role been in the ordinance story?

Ram Chandra Paudel, who became president in March 2023, has had a more cautious record on ordinances than his predecessor Bhandari, though not without moments of controversy.

He declined to sign NC-UML coalition government’s ordinance on the Constitutional Council in 2024, citing concerns about its content and timing. He also returned a bill on the Constitutional Council passed by both Houses of Parliament, listing areas needing reconsideration, including the question of majority-based decision-making.

Ram Chandra Paudel, who became president in March 2023, has had a more cautious record on ordinances than his predecessor Bhandari, though not without moments of controversy.

Critics argued he was blocking legitimate parliamentary decisions while his defenders said he was raising genuine constitutional questions.

As of April 28 situation, his office offered only a brief statement when the new ordinances were submitted: “It is being studied.” This suggests the President is again taking time to review rather than signing immediately, which contrasts with how Bhandari handled Oli’s ordinances in 2020, when she signed the Constitutional Council amendment the same afternoon it was presented.

Paudel has shown more institutional caution generally, even if the outcomes have sometimes frustrated the governments of the day.

What would genuine reform of Nepal’s ordinance culture actually look like?

Constitutional experts and parliamentary researchers have outlined what reform would need to address.

First, there should be a clear and enforceable definition of what constitutes a genuine emergency justifying an ordinance, with explicit recognition that political convenience is not an emergency.

Second, the 60-day conversion window should be treated as a hard deadline with real institutional mechanisms ensuring Parliament actually debates and votes on replacement bills rather than allowing them to lapse by inattention.

Third, the practice of suspending or dissolving Parliament specifically to create the legal window for ordinances should be explicitly barred, either through constitutional amendment or through strong judicial precedent.

Fourth, the Constitutional Council’s legal framework, which has been oscillating between ordinances, revocations, and failed replacement bills for over five years, needs to be settled through a proper parliamentary act with genuine cross-party buy-in.

Finally, experts argue the President’s role should be better defined: not as a rubber stamp but also not as a political veto, with the constitution providing clearer guidance on when the head of state can and cannot delay acting on a cabinet recommendation.

None of these reforms are easy in a political environment where the ordinance’s very flexibility makes it attractive to whoever holds executive power at any given moment.