[JURIST] Officials from the Nepal Constituent Assembly (CA) [official website] on Monday announced [press release] that the CA will finish drafting the country's new constitution within 18 months. According to a unanimously approved timetable, the CA will approve the final version of the constitution by the end of April 2010, and it will be made public by mid-May of that year. The new constitution will replace the current interim constitution [text, PDF; materials], which provides for the dissolution of the House of Representatives and the creation of an interim parliament in which 25 percent of seats are held by former Maoist insurgents. Reuters has more. eKantipur has local coverage.

In December 2007, Nepal's interim parliament voted to abolish the monarchy [JURIST report] as part of a plan to bring members of the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoists (CPN-M) [party website] back into government. The establishment of the CA [JURIST report] in April 2008 and the abolition of the monarchy were the main parts of a 2006 peace agreement [text; JURIST report] between the CPN-M and the Nepalese government, which marked the end of a 10-year Maoist insurgency [JURIST report].