At a time when the Supreme Court is testing the constitutionality of the House dissolution, four former chief justices have said the Constitution of Nepal doesn’t allow the KP Sharma Oli government to dissolve the House of Representatives.

The retired chief justices made a joint statement on Friday while the Supreme Court is still undecided which bench should handle the writ petitions filed against the House dissolution as recommended by the Oli Cabinet.

In the statement issued by former chief justices Min Bahadur Rayamajhi, Anup Raj Sharma, Kalyan Shrestha and Sushila Karki say the Articles that have been cited for the dissolution of the House don’t empower the prime minister to do so.

“Article 76 of Nepal’s constitution does not have any provision for dissolving the House unless for the purpose of forming a council of ministers but the House of Representatives is found to have been dissolved by the article that cannot be attracted to the act,” the former chief justices stated.

Though Oli’s decision to dissolve the House has divided public opinion sharply, major political parties Nepali Congress, the Nepal Communist Party (Dahal-Nepal) faction and Janata Samajbadi Party have already held a round of protests across the country.

“The action taken flouting the important change in the present constitution made to ensure stability in the House of Representatives and the government should be taken as an unusual political and constitutional impasse,” they stated.

The former chief justices also stressed that none of the contemporary incidents or situations can change the basic spirit of the constitution or its direction. They have drawn the attention of all those concerned to ensure that such an act is not repeated in the future for the sake of democracy, rule of law and development in the country and to work a way out of the current impasse.

“If we allow deviations against the constitution while implementing it, any of the provisions could be misused,” the former chief justices stated.