Except for some departmental actions against perpetrators, the government has not implemented a single recommendation for compensation or legal action by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the past four years.

Successive governments have consistently ignored legal provisions and shown reluctance to abide by the recommendations from the constitutional human rights watchdog. Things have only worsened of late.

As per the commission’s records, it has made 444 recommendations for interim relief, compensation, departmental actions against perpetrators and criminal prosecutions since the current team of office bearers took the commission’s command. Led by Chief Commissioner Top Bahadur Magar, the five-member team joined the commission in February 2021.

All three major parties—the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre)—have led the federal government over the past four years.

“Except for some departmental actions, not a single other recommendation has been implemented in the past four years,” said Shyam Babu Kafle, chief of the legal department at the commission. “Even interim reliefs recommended four years ago have yet to be released.” (Interim relief is intended for victims of human rights violations who need immediate financial support.)

As per section 9 of the NHRC Act, the commission can recommend that the relevant agency immediately provide interim relief or rescue victims in urgent need of intervention. “The agency concerned shall have to provide relief to the victim immediately after the commission issues an order,” reads the section.

However, successive governments have consistently failed to comply with the commission’s recommendations. Since its establishment in 2000, the constitutional rights watchdog has made 1,573 recommendations.

Only 15.30 percent of the recommendations have been fully implemented while 39.20 percent have been implemented partially. But there has been no progress in implementing a staggering 45.5 percent of the recommendations, according to the commission.

As per section 13 of the Act, after investigating the complaints, the commission can direct the concerned government agency to act. Such agencies must provide an explanation to the commission if they are unable to act.

“If the commission writes again for implementation after reviewing the response, the agency concerned shall have to implement it as soon as possible and inform the commission,” reads the Act.

Despite these provisions, successive governments have bypassed these provisions.

NHRC officials say, following repeated calls, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has formed a mechanism to increase the implementation rate following. The mechanism, led by a joint-secretary of the PMO, has representatives from various ministries, security agencies and the commission.

“Currently, the mechanism is actively working to clear the backlog of recommendations,” said Yagya Adhikari, commission’s joint secretary. “We are hoping for positive results soon.”

The commission sends its recommendations to the PMO as a liaison government agency. The PMO then forwards them to the respective ministers, and the ministers pass them on to their respective departments, which is a time-consuming process.

For instance, a recommendation for action against police officials accused of human rights violation first lands at the PMO. It is then forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs, then the Nepal Police. This process takes weeks.

“The mechanism was constituted to streamline the process, as it has representatives from most of the concerned agencies,” said Adhikari.

Amid the government’s reluctance to even release interim relief, there have been calls to set up a dedicated fund within the commission. The issue was strongly debated while a bill for a new NHRC Act was being drafted.

Principally, it is the executive’s responsibility to implement such recommendations,” said Kafle. “There is no practice of national rights institutions managing such funds in other countries as well. So we decided not to include it in the bill.”