Implementation of the recommendations by the National Human Rights Commission largely continues to be in abeyance due to the government's indifference.

As per the report of the constitutional human rights watchdog, less than one sixth of its recommendations have been fully implemented by the government. The commission’s annual report presented to President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday shows that it had recommended action in 503 complaints after thorough investigation in the cases over the past one year.

However, only 15.3 percent of them were fully implemented, while the government partially implemented 39.2 percent of the recommendations. No action was taken in 45.5 percent of the recommendations.

Generally, the government is found to be reluctant in implementing the recommendations, if they demand legal action. The recommendations for monetary compensation get the government’s priority for implementation.

“The implementation status of the recommendations from the commission is not encouraging,” said Top Bahadur Magar, who chairs the commission. The commission in the past two decades has made 1,195 recommendations to the government, including 940 related to the decade-long insurgency, as per the report released on Thursday.

However, only 163 of them—13.64 percent—have been fully implemented by successive governments, while 445—or 37.24 percent—have been addressed partially. Around half of the recommendations have gone unheeded despite the constitutional obligation for the government to do so.

Given the reluctance of the government in implementing its recommendations, the commission in October 2020 made public a list of 286 people, including former top government and security officials implicated in serious human rights violations over the past two decades, in an attempt to build pressure on the government to take action.

Among the total human rights violators implicated by the commission since its formation in 2000, the highest—98—are from Nepal Police, followed by 85 from the Nepal Army and 65 from then-CPN (Maoist). The commission has also implicated 16 civil servants and eight Armed Police Force personnel.

However, the government continues to ignore the recommendations.

The human rights commission also has raised its concerns over the delay in amending its Act, which was necessary as per the Constitution of Nepal.

“Amendment to the National Human Rights Commission Act hasn’t been done in line with the Constitution of Nepal. Also, the commission doesn’t have any financial autonomy as per the Paris Principle,” Magar added.

Though the erstwhile government in April 2019 had registered the bill to amend the Act, it didn’t get through Parliament as it met with criticism.