Judicial Review in Nepal

Abstract

Judicial Review of Laws and Administrative decisions in question is an integral exercise of democratic practice. As one of the organs of the government Judiciary should not only view Judicial Review as it's right to keep check on other organs of government but should also remember it as one of the most important duty that it is called upon. In this sense the paper deals with the pertinent issue of Judicial Review in Nepalese context. In the first part of the paper (Background) the basic premise over which the philosophy of Judicial Review stands has been discussed. In this part the concept of separation of power among organs of government and their mutual check on each other has been laid as the foundation on which Judicial Review lies. Then in the second part (Judicial Review) of the paper concept and the importance of Judicial Review has been discussed and with that a very brief history of Judicial Review and with that the Constitutional provision of Judicial Review has been mentioned. After that the Judicial attitude towards Judicial Review and then the scope of Judicial review, i.e. recent trends in Judiciary in developing the boundary of issues falling within the scope of judicial review has been discussed. Similarly with the ever expanding scope, in the next part the paper discusses the limitations of Judicial Review and lays the probable grounds on which the extra ordinary jurisdiction of supreme Court that of Judicial Review cannot be invoked. With above philosophical and theoretical background the paper in its core presents the analysis of Judicial Survey of few selected cases filed in the Supreme Court on the ground that the Laws questioned in each case were Unconstitutional. Furthermore the paper surveys only those decisions that declared the impugned law, as raised in the respective cases, ultra vires. In this regard, for the purpose of this paper only the laws questioned on the ground that those laws violated the Right of Equality of the citizen has been examined. And at last in Conclusion the paper tries to draw the importance of Judicial Review as an effective means of checking executive and legislature and protecting and expanding the Right to equality of the citizens.