After delays by successive governments to amend the National Human Rights Commission Act, the Supreme Court has directed the Ministry of Law and Justice to register an amendment bill in the federal parliament after detailed consultations.

Despite continuous pressure from the commission and human rights defenders, the government has shown no urgency to amend the Act, which must align with the Constitution of Nepal. A division bench of Justices Sushma Lata Mathema and Hari Phuyal also asked the government to incorporate a clause that makes it binding to act on the recommendations from the rights watchdog.

Ever since its formation in 2000, the rate of implementation of the recommendations from the commission has been very low. Hardly 15 percent of its recommendations have been fully addressed. Successive governments have remained indifferent even to take action in cases where the commission has convicted the perpetrators of crimes like extrajudicial killings.

Intervening in the matter, the division bench has asked the Prime Minister’s Office to present the list of those convicted by the commission to the Attorney General’s Office for prosecution. “Those involved in cases of human rights violations must be barred from appointment, promotion or any career development in any constitutional or public post,” reads the full text of the verdict published on Thursday.

Responding to the government’s reluctance to take action, the commission in October 2020 published a list of 286 people implicated in human rights violations. The list included former Chief of Army Staff Pyar Jung Thapa, former home secretary Narayan Gopal Malego and former chief of Nepal Police Kuber Singh Rana.

While Rana was directly involved in the enforced disappearance and the subsequent killing of five youths in Godar, Danusha in 2003 at the height of the Maoist insurgency, Thapa and Magelo were implicated for excessive use of force by the Nepal Police in Rangeli, Morang, during the second Madhesh movement in January 2016.

The commission had directed the government to book Rana for criminal offence but he was promoted to the chief of Nepal Police by the Baburam Bhattarai government in 2012.

The constitutional human rights body had also asked the government to bring Thapa to justice as he led the national defence force when 49 people were forcibly disappeared from the Army’s Bhairabnath Battalion in Maharajgunj between April 2003 and February 2005. The recommendation was never implemented. The commission also had directed the government to investigate Janata Samajbadi Party chair Upendra Yadav among 129 others in connection with the 2007 Gaur massacre.

The constitutional human rights watchdog on January 7 had asked government agencies through the Prime Minister’s Office to probe the heinous crime and take action against Yadav and others, if they are found guilty. The commission also demanded progress in the investigation every three months. But the PM’s Office is yet to abide by the order.

Several other security and government officials implicated in serious human rights violations have been promoted by bypassing the commission’s recommendations for action.

“We welcome the Supreme Court’s ruling. The amendment bill will be drafted in the spirit of the ruling,” Murari Kharel, secretary at the commission, told the Post. The commission is working on the draft bill in close coordination with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Ministry of Finance.

An amendment to the bill was registered in Parliament in April 2019 but it was never presented due to widespread criticism.

The constitutional human rights watchdog and various rights groups criticised the bill, which reduced the administrative and financial autonomy of the commission. It would require the commission to recommend the cases it investigates to the attorney general. The bill gave the attorney general full authority over whether or not to proceed with the case.

The existing Act empowers the commission to write directly to the agency mandated to execute its recommendations that come after an investigation.

The draft contradicted Article 293 of the constitution, which says constitutional commissions are accountable and answerable only to the federal parliament. Even parliamentary committees cannot issue directives to the human rights commission. The court verdict, according to Kharel, is aimed at strengthening the commission.

Other than the directive to amend the Act, the court has asked the commission to transfer the complaints of human rights violations from the armed conflict to the Commission on Investigation of Enforced Disappearances Persons and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission once the omissions start operating independently and autonomously with the amendment of the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act. The two commissions have been defunct for some two years in the absence of office bearers.