JUNE 17, 2012 KATHMANDU – In a latest move to continue the current government,The government has submitted two ordinances to President Ram Baran Yadav after the legislature parliament was automatically dissolved with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly (CA).
A Cabinet meeting on Sunday endorsed the ordinances –one on Mutual Legal Assistance Act and another on Extradition Treaty.

According to Minister for Information and Communications Raj Kishor Yadav, the president has been requested to bring in the ordinances as per the Cabinet decision.

The government moved ahead with its plans to bring in the ordinances at a time when the opposition parties including Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have been agitating against the government. They have been arguing that the caretaker government does not have the authority to bring ordinances. Both of these ordinances are related to anti-money laundering act.

The government has been trying to introduce the acts through ordinances, saying that the country is going to be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global inter-governmental anti-money laundering body.

If the Mutual Legal Assistance Act is implemented, the government would be allowed to investigate suspicious transactions in foreign countries. Likewise, the bill on extradition treaty would compel the government to surrender a criminal suspect or convicted criminal back to his respective country.

Earlier, the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), a regional body that looks into the compliance of anti-money laundering in the Asia Pacific region and reports to the FATF, had asked Nepal to bring these acts at the earliest.