Former chief justice Sushila Karki has been sworn in as the 42nd prime minister of Nepal.
At around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, President Ram Chandra Paudel administered the oath of office and secrecy to Prime Minister Karki amid a ceremony organized at Sheetal Niwas.
After the swearing-in ceremony, President Paudel also congratulated Karki.
"Many congratulations to you. May you be successful. May the country be successful. May the people be saved," President Paudel told Karki.
President Paudel appointed Karki as the prime minister of an interim government earlier on Friday.
She has been appointed to the post with the mandate to conduct the House of Representatives elections within six months.
Karki, the first woman chief justice of Nepal, has now become the first female prime minister of the country as well.
President Paudel appointed her as prime minister according to Article 61 (4) of the Constitution.
Article 61 (4) of the Constitution states that the main duty of the president shall be to abide by and protect the Constitution.
Accordingly, recognizing that a constitutional crisis could arise from the political vacuum created after the Gen Z movement, the president, in his capacity as the guardian and upholder of the Constitution, appointed Karki as the prime minister.
KP Sharma Oli resigned as prime minister on September 9, the day after youths lost their lives due to the state’s use of force during Gen Z-led protests.
Following this, the agitating Gen Z youths wanted an interim government to be formed under the leadership of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balen Shah. However, he was not ready to lead the government.
Meanwhile, former chief justice Kalyan Shrestha was proposed for the prime minister’s role. He declined the position, citing his advanced age and the opinion he had written from the constitutional bench in a writ petition against the interim government led by Khil Raj Regmi in the past.
After Shrestha stepped aside, Gen Z youths deliberated all day Wednesday on the social media platform Discord and proposed the name of former chief justice Karki to lead the interim government that would run the country and conduct elections in the coming days. Around 10,000 people participated in the live discussion, which was also streamed on YouTube.
Based on this discussion, a group of youths went to discuss Karki's name with Chief of the Army Staff Ashok Raj Sigdel. Mayor Balen Shah also expressed his support for Karki via social media on Wednesday night.
Shah and Karki appear to have grown closer in recent days. Om Prakash Aryal, legal advisor to the Kathmandu Metropolitan City, is also close to Karki. Aryal was the key figure engaging in talks on behalf of Karki at Shital Niwas since Wednesday.
The close relationship between Karki and Aryal is linked to an old case.
Aryal had filed a petition in the Supreme Court to stop the appointment of Lokman Singh Karki as the chief of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA). With her decision on the petition, Karki paved the way for declaring Karki's appointment invalid, something even the major parties had not dared to touch. This verdict established her as a fearless justice.
Former chief justice Karki is known in the Supreme Court as a judge with a good reputation and one who is not afraid to make decisions. She held the position of chief justice from July 11, 2016, to June 7, 2017.
She was brought to the Supreme Court as a temporary judge from among advocates in 2008. Two years later, she became a permanent judge and later a senior justice.
During her tenure as chief justice, Karki did not allow the government and Parliament to overstep the boundaries of law and the Constitution. Many praise her for standing like a rock before the government and Parliament on the path of upholding the law and Constitution.
Karki's reputation as a judge stems from corruption cases. Throughout her career, she resolved numerous corruption cases against political leaders.
From her bench, Karki convicted then-minister Jay Prakash Gupta of corruption and sent him to jail.
At that time, many corruption cases were under consideration in the Supreme Court in which high-ranking individuals were implicated but had been acquitted by the Special Court on technical grounds like statute of limitations. Karki sent such cases back to the Special Court, directing them to be reheard and decided on the basis of facts. These included cases involving former minister Govinda Raj Joshi, Rabindra Sharma, and others.
Karki not only settled pending corruption cases, but also set an example in the judiciary by rejecting political interference in judicial services through her integrity and honesty.
In the meantime, toward the end of her judicial career, an attempt was made by the Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Center) to impeach her. On April 30, 2017, the NC and Maoist Center registered an impeachment motion against Karki in Parliament.
Nepal's first female chief justice also became the first chief justice to face an impeachment motion.
At that time, the opposition CPN-UML opposed the impeachment motion. A few days later, on May 5, a bench of Supreme Court Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana issued an interim order declaring that impeachment motion ineffective. Following the order, Karki returned to the Supreme Court.
One month later, her tenure as chief justice ended on June 7.
Karki is known as a judge who does not succumb to pressure or influence. Her simple lifestyle also plays a significant role in this. She had no interest in a flashy lifestyle. Her husband, Durga Subedi, prefers an extremely ordinary life. Subedi is a Nepali Congress politician who was involved in the 1973 airplane hijacking incident.
The opinion written by former chief justice Shrestha and then-justice Karki from the constitutional bench on the petition filed against the election government formed under Khil Raj Regmi's leadership is worth recalling here.
In their minority opinion, Karki and Shrestha wrote: 'Without clear constitutional guarantees, from the perspective of Nepal's constitutionalism and constitutional practices, such actions would be undesirable in the implementation of the interim Constitution and subsequently in the implementation of constitutional practices. Therefore, this court directs that no such action shall be repeated under any circumstances in the future, and to remain always vigilant in that regard, and sends a copy of this order to the president and all concerned.'
