Miscellaneous
Federal executive order allows provinces to mobilise police
The federal government has issued an executive order, allowing the provinces to deploy the police force for maintaining law and order. This will be in effect until necessary federal laws are in place.Tika R Pradhan
The federal government has issued an executive order, allowing the provinces to deploy the police force for maintaining law and order. This will be in effect until necessary federal laws are in place.
The move follows intense pressure from provincial governments—especially the Province 2 administration—to draft a federal law governing security deployment and authorising provinces to handle their internal security affairs as mandated by the constitution.
A Cabinet meeting on October 28 issued the order entitled “Executive Order to maintain peace and security and Provincial Police Administration-2018”, as per Schedule 6 of the constitution, with an aim to make “peace, security and provincial
police administrations more effective”.
Since the Federal Police Act remains to be passed, the Home Ministry on October 25 registered a draft of the “executive order” at the Cabinet secretariat.
As per the Nepal Government (Work Execution) Regulations, the proposal endorsed by the home minister on October 24 was presented to the Cabinet.
According to the executive order, a copy of which was obtained by the Post, the
provincial police chief can mobilise personnel up to the sub-inspector level in close coordination with the provincial government and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Law for keeping order and providing security.
In handling the police force, the provincial governments are required to fully abide by the applicable laws including the Act, regulations, directives and standards.
Currently a deputy inspector general of police commands the provincial police unit under the central government.
The provincial governments, however, oppose the executive order.
“While our demand was early endorsement of the Federal Police Act, which would allow us to draft the provincial law, the executive order merely authorises the provincial government to deploy personnel up to the sub-inspector level,” said Shalikram Jammarkattel, the internal affairs minister for Province 3.
According to the constitution, provinces can oversee security on the basis of the respective provincial police law in line with the federal law.
According to Jammarkattel, the Home Ministry’s first job should have been drafting necessary laws to ensure smooth functioning of the provincial governments.
The task remains incomplete nine months after KP Sharma Oli took charge of Singha Durbar.
“Now all of us—provincial internal affairs ministers—will bring the Provincial Police Act and implement it,” he said, challenging Kathmandu to take action against them. All the provinces except Province 3, he claimed, have got approval to draft the provincial police law.
Province 2 has already endorsed the Act necessary for mobilising police, threatening to implement it unless the federal government quickly passes the corresponding law.
Province 2 Minister Jitendra Sonal said Janakpur has no information about the executive order. “We want full-fledged authority at the earliest to mobilise the police force in the province,” he said.