Nepal Supreme Court to decide on reinstatement of Parliament

KATHMANDU, Friday (BBC) The Nepalese supreme court has begun a key hearing on a petition on the reinstatement of the country's dissolved Parliament.

The court move has coincided with mounting opposition demands for the restoration of the legislature.

King Gyanendra had been rejecting the demand, although the parties insist that the reinstatement is crucial to end the long-running political crisis.

The country's parliament was dissolved in 2002.

An eleven-member jury of the supreme court began the hearing on Thursday. The newly appointed chief justice, Dilip Kumar Poudel, headed the jury.

The case had been pending for the past three years. A seven-party opposition alliance has been demanding that the parliament be reinstated to clear the way for an all-party interim government. The alliance argues that the multi-party interim government will then negotiate peace with the Maoist rebels and hold fresh national elections.

National elections have not been held since the parliament was dissolved in 2002 followed by the assumption of executive powers by King Gyanendra the same year. He has been refusing to restore the parliament.

The unrelenting monarch went a step ahead in February this year by consolidating his powers when he sacked a coalition government and took direct control.

The king says that the move was needed to end the ten-year Maoist insurgency which he said the political parties failed to tackle when they were in power.

The parties stepped up the anti-king protests since then. They have dubbed the royal takeover unconstitutional and undemocratic.

The supreme court's ruling on the reinstatement of parliament will be significant in shaping the future of Nepali politics which has been marked by a growing feud between the king and the major parties in recent years.

The rift between them has benefited the Maoist rebels who want to replace the parliamentary democracy and the monarchy with a communist republic. Parliament has been dissolved three times since multi-party democracy was established in 1990. The supreme court upheld the dissolution twice, but it reinstated the parliament on another occasion.