Parvati endured physical violence, rape, and mental abuse within her marriage for 20 years before eventually deciding that she would no longer tolerate the mistreatment from her husband.

“One day, I felt that he might kill me and I thought, I will not die in darkness,” Parvati, who the Post is identifying with a pseudonym for privacy, said. “I will expose him and even if I die, at least I will let the world know his true colours.”

Her domestic violence and property division case has been ongoing for five years, and for the past year the case has fallen under the purview of the family bench—a new judicial institution that began seeing cases on October 5, 2023 as a part of the Kathmandu District Court.

There is a family bench in six district courts in Nepal. The bench aims to give female plaintiffs faster decisions in cases regarding family relations, alimony, domestic violence and property division. The court does not see to divorce cases as Nepali law mandates a year’s waiting period for divorce cases when one of the parties does not agree to the divorce.

Every day, the Kathmandu District Court selects by hand-drawn lottery one judge out of a pool of three to preside over the family bench.

The family bench at the Kathmandu District Court can claim some success: it has adjudicated 743 cases since its creation and is currently seeing 611 active cases, according to Section Officer Shree Prasad Paudel at Kathmandu District Court. Still, as in the case of Parvati, legal procedure that favours the defendants and a lack of specialised treatment for women’s cases hampers the delivery of justice.

“I now know why all the survivors withdraw from these cases,” Parvati said. “You go through hell every day. It takes a lot of guts and it takes a lot of grit.”

‘A good improvement’

More than a decade ago, the Supreme Court directed the government to establish fast-track courts for cases involving women and children. The family bench began as an initiative of former Chief Justice Bishowambhar Prasad Shreshta. By assigning cases related to women’s issues to a specific judge each day, these cases escape the sometimes years-long queue for a hearing in the general court.

“We treat [these cases] differently from other cases because they get prioritised,” Kathmandu District Court Information Officer Melish Banskota told the Post. “We are seeing a speedy adjudication.”

When the family bench was first created, the court randomly selected a judge daily out of the full 40 judge lottery to preside over the family bench. On July 16, the Supreme Court mandated only three judges preside over the family bench so that they could better specialise in women’s cases. Now, only the fourth, fifth, and sixth Kathmandu District Court judges are eligible to preside over the family bench: Judge Bishnu Prasad Upadhyaya, Judge Madhav Prasad Adhikari, and Judge Shishir Raj Dhakal, respectively.

When they are selected to preside over the family bench, each judge sees an average of 10 cases a day, they said.

“To some extent we’ve achieved the goal,” Judge Upadhyaya told the Post. “Cases are settled on time.”

‘The process is the same’

Manika Khadka, a criminal lawyer at the Women’s Foundation Nepal, has had 25 cases go through the family bench within the past year.

“A family case is not like other cases,” Khadka said. “These are very sensitive. They need to be finalised fast, but in Nepal, it’s not so easy.”

Khadka was initially hopeful, but she has found that her family bench cases face the same procedural delays as the general court.

“We thought [the family bench] will be very good, but it’s the same,” Khadka said. “The process is the same.”

Within the family bench, court procedure still limits how quickly the judges can deliver their decisions.

“There is no difference in procedure for the family court,” Banskota said. “Judges are facing difficulties because in case of a criminal law, we have a procedure that is more favourable to the defendant. Because of this, [cases are] a bit lengthy when you follow all the due processes of the basic law.”

The need to provide evidence of physical and mental abuse poses a challenge, Tara Upreti, Founding President and Secretary General of the Women’s Foundation Nepal, said.

“If a husband tries to kill his wife, how do you prove that?” Upreti said. “If somebody tries to smash you, you cannot take a picture—you have to run away, and then you have to prove domestic violence.”

To register a physical domestic violence case, plaintiffs need a medical report, and in the case of mental abuse, victims must get medical documentation of their psychological harm. If a victim’s wounds have healed, or they can’t get access to a psychologist, they cannot file their case.

Sometimes—for instance, at a hearing that Khadka thinks will be the final hearing one—a judge will request further documentation.

“They need more, unnecessary proof,” Khadka said. “[Mental abuse] is very hard to prove, it’s very hard to get justice in the case.”

Family bench cases also face delays when the defendant requests mediation before a final verdict, a process that takes many months and often does not lead to a resolution. In practice, delays from the defendant, especially in cases related to property division, can delay results for years.

“For the man’s side, they want to take more time,” Khadka said. “They don’t want to give property, they just want to extend the case.”

Upreti of the Women’s Foundation sees these delays as attempts to get the plaintiff to give up.

“They want to extend the case and then the lady will give up or commit suicide… I think that’s the attitude,” Upreti said.

After the court makes a decision in favour of a plaintiff, lack of enforcement further delays justice. Even after the court’s decisions, the Women’s Foundation must still offer legal help, sometimes for years, to victims working with the court’s implementation division regarding payment or property division.

According to Banskota, if the court orders the defendant to pay alimony, but the defendant’s income is not documented, implementation of the court’s decision is very challenging.

These delays compound the victim’s suffering, Upreti says. “It causes them distress, anxiety and trauma,” she said.

‘A special law is necessary’

Women’s attorney Khadka and family bench Judge Upadhyaya agree that a legal procedure specifically tailored to women’s and family cases would help the family bench achieve its goal of delivering justice to victims.

“A special law should provide judges and court officials the right to promptly provide justice,” Upadhyaya said.

This special law, according to Upadhyaya, would ideally include more robust provision of interim relief for victims. Currently, the court does not offer a safe house or cover basic needs for domestic violence victims while their cases are pending. Instead, the most the court can do is order interim relief—money and basic needs such as housing and medical care—from the defendant to the plaintiff.

“In the case of Nepal, [interim relief] depends on the capacity of the defendant,” Information Officer Banskota said. “If the defendant doesn’t have enough resources to provide [interim relief], it’s very difficult to implement.”

For Khadka’s clients, fear of having to leave their homes after filing a case—or facing more abuse—prevents them from taking legal action.

Banskota agrees that the District Court should do more to help women in these circumstances.

“We should provide [the victim] with a safe house and certain medical facilities,” Banskota said.

All three judges currently serving on the family bench believe that a full family court with judges specialising in family law should see women’s cases—rather than judges from the general District Court pool.

“For better quality, it is vital for us to make family cases a special focus,” Upadhyaya said. “If we want to provide special service from the family bench, judges and staff should also have special training.”

“The judges need to be sensitive enough to understand this issue,” Upreti said. “The mostly male judges have no idea about this.”

The judges are working to achieve the goals of the family bench but are stuck in the same system.

“Now we are working for speedy justice and promptly hearing the cases, but we don’t have a separate procedure or separate manpower,” Judge Dhakal said.

‘It’s about my dignity’

The judges hope that the family bench’s establishment will, in the long run, be a stepping stone in the process of establishing a full family court.

“We are just in the starting phase,” Judge Dhakal said. “Slowly it will change into the family court.”

But making this change depends on action from the legislature. In the meantime, Parvati and other women whose cases are still in court are anxiously awaiting justice.

Parvati has received an interim order from the court that allows her to live separately from her husband, and she has begun to work outside the home again—after her husband restricted this freedom for years.

Parvati sees herself as stronger and having more confidence than when she first filed her case.

“I have been through hell every day. Lonely, I have suffered alone,” she said. “I have been in near death situations thousands of times.”

She hopes her case will lead to a fair property division, but she has come to rely more on the legal research she has done on her own time and her persistence.

“My case is progressing well, but I have also left no stone unturned,” she said. “It’s not only property. It’s about my dignity.”