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Dila Pun of Bheri municipality in Jajarkot dis­trict of western Nepal is not amused. She used to pay Rs 16 in land and property tax annually. But as a part of the municipality’s consolidated property tax she is now having to fork out Rs 1,900 for the same piece of real estate. “There has been no change in public services. The local hospital does not have medicines for even common fever and yet the government is burdening us with back-break­ing taxes,” she complained with APEX.

Pun’s grievance with local taxes reverberates right across the country. In Tilottama municipality of Rupandehi district, also in western Nepal, the local level units of Nepali Congress have formed ward-level ‘struggle committees’ against the ‘arbi­trary imposition’ of new taxes. With everything from mom-and-pop shops to cattle being taxed under the new regime, people’s frustration with elected officials, and with the new federal setup—which has rightly or wrongly come to be associated with higher taxes—is growing.

In the absence of proper guidelines, such taxes at lower levels of government can often be arbitrary and punitive. There is also a risk of duplication in taxes among the three tiers of government. The National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission, a constitu­tional body, was supposed to sort out these issues. Yet nearly three years after the promulgation of the new constitution, this ‘facilitator’ between the three tiers of government is yet to get its full shape.

This in turn is indicative of lack of political com­mitment to implement the seven-province, 753-local body federal formula. Even though the constitution has clearly delineated Nepal as a federal republic, there is still reluctance to devolve power and resourc­es away from Kathmandu. This is reflected in the fact that over 70 percent of all taxes collected in the coun­try is going into the coffers of the federal government. On the other hand, neither the local units nor the federal government have been able to offer a credi­ble rationale—for instance guaranteed social security (See here)—for increased local taxes. This is not so much a sign of the failure of federalism as it is of the mindset of our top politicians who are yet to internalize that the old unitary setup has been aban­doned—for a reason. The latest tussle over taxation is likely to a harbinger of much bigger disputes between different government tiers.

 The August 5 abduction and murder of 12-year-old Nishan Khadka followed by the August 6 ‘encounter killings’ of Khadka’s abductees, Ajay Tamang (24) and Gopal Tamang (23), has raised some troubling questions about Nepal Police. The police appear to be responsible, albeit indirectly, for the killing of the little boy and for what many see as cold blooded shooting of the two abductees.

It is hard to believe that our police is so incompe­tent that it has to send threatening SMS to the abduct­ees, making them panic and kill the boy under their control. Former police officials say that is exactly what the cops should not have done. The two abductees were later arrested and taken to a jungle in Surya Binayak on the outskirts of Kathmandu where they were apparently shot dead in cold blood.

Since the police has thus far put out only a weak defense of its action, these allegations seem to have at least some truth. If so, the implications are disturbing. One, it suggests our police force is incapable of handling even routine abduction cases. The little boy’s life in this case could conceivably have been saved had the police not resorted such crude and juvenile threats against the abductees.

Two, the new penchant in the police for encounter killings hints that the cops think they are a law onto themselves. In this particular case, the two abductees were most likely killed because the police wanted to appear as heroes who punished, in the most brazen way possible, the killers of a small kid. In fact, in recent times there have been some other instances of such ‘encounters’ whereby the police have found it more expedient to shoot to death notorious criminals than to take them into custody.

Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, a former Maoist rebel, has apparently given the police a free hand to remove ‘rotten eggs’ of the society. The aim seems to be to strike terror in the hearts of criminals, make them so afraid they shudder even at the thought of committing a crime. He does not seem to care that giving the police such carte blanche makes police personnel liable to abuse their powers, to lead to grave human rights violations, and to promote a culture of impunity. The Nishan Khadka episode will hopefully serve as a cautionary tale. Justice dispended at the end of the barrel of a gun is no justice at all. Nor does trampling on due process make the police any more popular.

The worst part about the parliamentary hear­ing process of the proposed Chief Justice Deepak Raj Joshee was that it was never sup­posed to come that far. If Joshee was unfit to be chief justice, he was surely unfit to be a justice of the Supreme Court as well. With his questionable aca­demic credentials and a history of troubling decisions in lower courts, how did he get through the vetting processes of first the judiciary and then the parliament when he was first nominated for the apex court?

Not just in Joshee’s case but generally too there is a lot of politicking in the appointment of senior judges in Nepal. Not that other supposedly more mature democracies are free from this malaise. The American president invariably appoints Supreme Court judges along partisan lines and the Senate hearing committee is likewise divided along party lines. But where the American and Nepali systems dif­fers the most is that a controversial figure like Joshee, who apparently failed to clear his school leaving exams, would never have been considered for such an important role to start with. (Even Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees have impeccable academic and intellectual credentials.)

Another big difference is that while the Nepali par­liamentary hearings are considered no more than for­malities to rubberstamp the names proposed by the executive, similar hearings in more mature democra­cies involve rigorous vetting. This is because the con­cept of separation of powers is already institutional­ized there. On the other hand, the reason there was such skepticism about Joshee’s hearing was because hearing committee members were seen as taking cues from the executive.

On the positive side, the proposal of Joshee as chief justice again highlighted the vital role that the media plays in upholding democratic principles in Nepal. Were it not for front-page exposés of Joshee’s checkered past, the parliamentary hearing committee could have easily waved through his name. (Of course, if the ruling coalition wanted Joshee as chief justice, it was in a posi­tion to successfully push his name in the committee, never mind the vetting process.)

It is thus vital that we put in place a system that keeps bad eggs from contaminating an all-important institu­tion like the Supreme Court. Pluck them out early. The appointment of the head of the supreme law interpret­ing body of the land is not something to be taken lightly.

The manifest lack of cooperation between the federal and provincial governments is a cause for concern for the future the nascent federal republic. The seven provincial gov­ernments think the center, which gets 71 percent of all revenues, is trying to deliberately weaken the prov­inces. In the absence of laws to properly divide taxing rights between the federal and provincial govern­ments, many provinces have imposed their own taxes to fund themselves.

The federal government says that such arbitrary taxing is ‘unconstitutional’. It has written to provincial governments to roll back new taxes. For instance it had to ask provinces 1, 3 and 4 to discontinue their ‘District Export Tax’ levied on movement of forest, agro and mine products. Province 5 has passed a mandate to impose a tax of between Rs 160 to Rs 320 on Indian vehicles, again by stepping on dicey legal grounds.

While the provinces have in some cases agreed not to impose these taxes, in other cases they have refused to back down. Province 2 Minister for Physical Infra­structure Jitendra Prasad Sonal recently accused the central government of trying to dismantle the federal setup by taking away all the important rights from the provinces. Taxes are in fact just a part of the broader dispute between the different tiers of government.

Province 2 Internal Affairs Minister Gyanendra Kumar Yadav has instructed the chief district offi­cers of the eight districts in the province to issue lin­eage-based citizenship certificates to those eligible under the Nepal Citizenship Act 2006. But the CDOs could not obey him as there are no requisite laws. No doubt these laws should have been drafted on time by the federal legislature. But it was also wrong of a pro­vincial minister to issue such a directive on citizenship, which falls under the ambit of the federal government.

The transfer of staff is another sticking point. Many civil servants used to serving in Kathmandu are reluc­tant to go work in provinces. Yet the provincial gov­ernments still complain that they cannot choose their own employees. Local governments, too, are forever complaining about lack of laws, manpower and money.

Whatever the filings of the local and provincial gov­ernments, the federal-level ministers and bureaucrats are clearly uncomfortable with the idea of decentral­ization of power and resources away from Kathman­du. This unitary mindset must change, and soon, if the federal formula in Nepal is to succeed.