RtF Bill/Act

---

Government enacted Right to Food and Food Sovereignty Act 2075

As a result of cumulative efforts made by Civil Society, political parties and other concerned stakeholders, ‘Right to Food’ is guaranteed as a ‘Fundamental Right’ under Article 36 in the Constitution for the first time in history of Nepal. Accordingly, Article 47 of the Constitution has mandated the Government to make legal provisions for the implementation of fundamental rights within three years (by 2018) of the commencement of the Constitution. Hence, the ‘Cabinet of Ministerial’, in January 2016, mandated Ministry of Agriculture as a ‘Line Ministry’ for overall responsibility and instructed ‘Nepal Law Commission’ to draft the ‘Bill of Right to Food Act’ for making the fundamental right of citizen to food as a ‘Claimable Right’. As soon as the government instructed Nepal Law Commission to draft RtF Bill, ‘Right to Food Bill Working Group’ was formed on the initiation of FIAN Nepal on 18 March 2018 including the members of ‘Civil Society’ working in the right to food, food security and food sovereignty issue aiming to initiate ‘CSO Collective Initiatives’ for effective advocacy and lobby work with the ‘Law & Policy Makers’ so as to make the Bill in favor of RtF Violated Communities & in line with International Standard focusing to the National context. In this connection, series of supportive, pressurize & follow up actions from local to national level has been carried out respectively with ‘Nepal Law Commission’ and ‘Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock Development’. As a result, Nepal Law Commission has prepared ‘First Draft of RtF Bill’ incorporating feedback & suggestions from CSOs and submitted to Ministry of ‘Agriculture & Livestock Development’ in May 2017 to take further action for the RtF Act making process. Following to this, Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock Development finalized the Bill including feedback/suggestions from CSOs, taken the approval from Ministerial of Cabinet on the Bill on 26 June 2018 and tabled the Bill in the Federal Parliament on 17 August 2018 for the ratification. In this regard, Government, taking into consideration of short period of time, has decided to follow the ‘Fast Track Process’ to ratify the RtF Bill from the Parliament within a week from 23-31 August 2018. i.e. (1) first step to conduct ‘Theoretical Discussion‘ on RtF Bill in the House of Representatives, (2) Following to the ‘Theoretical Discussion’, submission of ‘Amendment Proposal on the Bill‘ to the Parliament (before 4:30 on 29 Aug 2018) by the Members of Parliament who are interested to make any amendment/suggestion on the Bill within 72 hours, & (3) finally conduct ‘Section wise Discussion’ & ratification of Bill by the Parliament. Finally, Parliament passed the RtF Bill on 16 Sept 2018 and President approved the Bill on 18 Sept 2018.

Read how FIAN Nepal in collaboration with Civil Society Organizations put tireless efforts in this process.