Legal niceities

A copy of the controversial Media Consul Bill leaked exclusively to The Ass by a highly-placed authoritarian source reveals that everything that happens in this country can heretofore and hereinafter only be divulged on a need-to-know basis. This means if there is a need to know anything then you’ll be told there is no need to know it. In other words, as they say in legal parlance, STFU. Below is the leaked draft, which means that it is against the law to read the rest of this column. So, stop right here. DO NOT read any further.

WHEREAS you are already committing a crime by flouting the law by reading this restricted document, and are liable to face 5 years in jail and/or Rs 1 corrode in bribe money, the government reserves the right to suspend freedom of expressionism until the Security Printing Press Kickback Scandal, the Nepal Trust Scam, and the Baluwatar Land Swindle blow over. The media will henceforth be referred to as a lapdog and not a watchdog.

REAFFIRMING that freedom comes with strings attached and even though the truth must be adhered to at all times, during extraordinary circumstances exceptions shall be made, such as when the news is:

(a) Boring

(b) Uncomfortable

(c) What actually happened, or

(d) Hurts the feelings of a northerly neighbour

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT ALSO, that subject to provisions of Subsection (2) of Section 3 of the Constitution, every citizen shall have right of access to official information from the state media, the aforementioned shall cover all functions in a prominent manner and repeat the entire proceedings without expunging any visuals of the dignitary pontificating ad nauseum. The clip shall be broadcast during three segments of the morning news:

(a) The Main Points of the News

(b) The News in Detail, and

(c) The Weather Forecast

PURSUANT TO the entire unexpunged version being aired in its scintillating detail after the evening news broadcast, failure to do so will result in an immediate angry phone call from Ministry of Disinformation to the incumbent director of the state media, hereinafter referred to as ‘The Mouth Organ’.

NOTWITHSTANDING the provisions of Subsection (2) the people’s right to information shall not be curtailed on any of the grounds therein, with the exception of the following categories:

(i) National security, which includes politics, economics, culture, history, geography, biology, maths, celebrities parked illegally, foreign affairs, or illicit domestic affairs.

(ii) Items that jeopardise Nepal’s fraternal and fragile bilateral relations with fellow-pariah states

(iii) Freedom of thought is hereby banned, and anyone thinking subversive thoughts will be liable to persecution

(iv) Weather reports that predict gloomy weather, since they may adversely affect national morale

(vi) Humour will be barely tolerated but satire is banned with immediate effect.

The Ass

writer

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