The promise of political change is simple in theory but fragile in practice: replace what failed, correct what was distorted and restore public trust in institutions. Yet Nepal’s recurring experience with the Constitutional Council (CC) suggests a more uncomfortable reality—governments change, but governing habits often do not.
The CC was never designed as a ceremonial body. It was created as a constitutional safeguard to prevent the executive from unilaterally capturing key state institutions through politically motivated appointments. By bringing together the Prime Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker, Deputy Speaker, National Assembly Chair and the parliamentary party leader of the Main Opposition party, the Constitution envisioned a balancing mechanism—one that would force dialogue, consensus and institutional restraint in the selection of office bearers in the constitutional bodies.
But history shows that this very mechanism has become a frequent casualty of political convenience.
In the 15 years since the Constitutional Council Act was enacted in 2006, it has been amended at least 11 times—most often not to strengthen institutional integrity, but to adjust the balance of power in favour of the sitting prime minister. Ordinances, in particular, have become the preferred instrument for this adjustment. From interim arrangements under Khil Raj Regmi to successive elected governments and even administrations claiming reformist legitimacy, the pattern has remained remarkably consistent: when consensus is difficult, the rules are rewritten. And the rule of law is bent into “rule by law” to suit convenience.
This is where the contradiction becomes stark.
In moments of political transition—whether following public movements, electoral shifts, or coalition rearrangements—there is often a strong narrative that “old politics” will be corrected. Governments are framed as corrective forces, tasked with fixing the distortions of their predecessors. In recent political discourse, even the idea of a Balen-led reformist shift (often associated with the rise of new political forces like the Rastriya Swatantra Party) has been projected as a break from entrenched practices of elite manipulation.
When does wisdom kick in?
Yet the latest Constitutional Council episode exposes a harder truth: the tools of distortion are not tied to parties or personalities—they are tied to power itself.
Former governments have indeed manipulated the Constitutional Council’s functioning through ordinances, lowering quorum requirements, bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and enabling politically convenient appointments. These actions weakened institutional credibility and blurred the line between constitutional balance and executive dominance. But what is more concerning is the continuity of method across political labels.
The recurring question is no longer just “who did it wrong?” but “why does every government eventually do the same thing?”
The Constitutional Council exists precisely because Nepal’s constitutional design rejects unchecked executive authority. It assumes disagreement, demands negotiation and forces inclusion of dissenting voices. When governments attempt to bypass this structure through ordinances—especially during parliamentary recesses—they are not merely altering procedure; they are reshaping the constitutional intent itself.
Legal experts have repeatedly warned about this drift. They describe the CC as a carefully designed balance mechanism meant to prevent institutional capture and that the ordinance-based restructuring undermines the spirit of constitutional governance, reducing what should be a consensus-driven process into one driven by numerical manipulation.
The consequences are not abstract. Over the years, constitutional appointments made without meaningful parliamentary scrutiny have generated controversy, eroded trust in oversight institutions and politicised bodies that were meant to be independent arbiters of accountability—from the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority to the Public Service Commission and beyond.
The irony is that every cycle of political change promises reform. Yet once in office, governments repeatedly face the same temptation: to control appointments, to secure institutional alignment and to minimise opposition friction. The result is a constitutional mechanism that oscillates between design and distortion, never fully stabilising.
The latest episode of the revival of ordinance proposals—again targeting the structure and decision-making threshold of the Constitutional Council—has reignited this debate. Even after previous presidential reservations and legal objections, the persistence of similar proposals signals not institutional learning, but institutional repetition.
This raises a fundamental democratic question: if every government inherits the same system, criticises its misuse and then proceeds to use it in the same way, what exactly has changed?
Reform in a democracy is not measured by who comes to power, but by whether power behaves differently once acquired. If new political actors repeat the same executive overreach they once condemned, then the change becomes symbolic rather than substantive. Critics have questioned the purpose of political change, arguing that replacing one government is meaningless if the new leadership repeats the same mistakes as its predecessor.
That question now extends beyond individuals or parties. It speaks to the credibility of Nepal’s constitutional order itself.
The Constitutional Council was designed to ensure that no single actor—no matter how popular or powerful—could dominate the most sensitive appointments in the state. Its repeated manipulation suggests a deeper institutional weakness: the inability of political actors to resist short-term advantage in favour of long-term democratic stability.
Until that changes, the cycle will remain familiar. Governments will continue to criticise the past, promise reform in the present and replicate the same patterns in power. And each time, the Constitutional Council will bear the weight of yet another exception justified as necessity.
In that sense, the real question is not whether governments change. It is whether governance ever does.
