The much awaited base document by the Panel of Experts, which will guide the final constitutional draft by the legislators, was submitted to the Steering Committee (SC) on Wednesday.
The Panel of Experts, appointed to give technical and legal support to the SC, presented two documents, instead of one, when the Steering Committee met on July 18. Due to lack of consensus on some issues, the process seemed to come to a grinding halt. The Committee later, gave two weeks to the Panel to come up with a consensus document and to take the process forward.
Four of the ten members of the Expert Panel have penned individual submissions to make it clear that their independent opinions differed with regard to certain proposals in the ‘base document’.
“The idea was to push the process forward, ending the current stalemate created by divided opinions of the Experts on the Base Document proposals, a senior official told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
This final report by the Experts will be a working draft for the Steering Committee, in the next phase of the Constitution making process. The Steering committee at the end of their discussions based on the Expert Panel report will come up with a final report that would be the first draft of the new Constitution.