The Supreme Court of Nepal has directed the government to formulate clear laws, policies and programmes on reparations for victims of state atrocities, in line with international legal standards and the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation.

Passing verdicts in two different writ petitions from the Maoist insurgency-era victims and human rights activists, a division bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Hari Phuyal also scrapped discriminatory provisions in different laws relating to compensation and relief to the victims. The division bench has identified several problematic provisions across different legal provisions and directed the authorities concerned to make revisions.

For instance, the Citizen Relief Procedure states that relief and assistance shall not be provided if the widow of a deceased person has remarried. However, in practice, relief has been provided even to husbands of deceased or disappeared persons who have remarried. The Malla-led bench says the disparity highlights a gender bias embedded in the policy framework. While a woman loses eligibility for relief once she remarries, a man remains eligible for the same assistance despite remarriage.

“This provision leads to gender discrimination while also contradicting the constitutional guarantee of equality enshrined in Article 18 of the constitution,” reads the full text of the verdict from March last year, released on Monday.

Likewise, the Social Security Fund Operation Procedure does not recognise wives of disappeared persons within the definition of “single women”. As a result, women whose husbands have been forcibly disappeared have been deprived of the services and benefits available under social security provisions. The provision also contradicts the right to equality and the right to social justice of disappeared persons and their families, according to the verdict.

The Malla-Phuyal bench has also found that the definition of victims under the Citizen Relief, Compensation and Financial Assistance Procedure is inconsistent with the definitions recognised under international human rights law. Thus, the government has been directed to amend it.

In another case, the court has scrapped Section 3(1)(b) of the Social Security Allowance Distribution Procedure 2020, which requires single women to submit an application accompanied by proof of a judicial declaration of death under prevailing law. The requirement, the court has stated, is contrary to the right to live with dignity, the right to equal protection by the law, and the right to social justice guaranteed by the constitution.

“The government is directed to revise the problematic rules and laws within six months,” reads the verdict. “It is also necessary to formulate clear laws, policies and programmes on reparations for victims.”

The court has also laid down broader principles to guide the government in formulating policies for conflict victims, stressing that the state must ensure meaningful consultation with those directly affected.

In its ruling, the bench observed that policies, directives, or procedures concerning sensitive groups, such as conflict victims, cannot be framed unilaterally by the state. Citing principles of administrative law, the court said decisions taken without the participation of those whose rights and interests are directly affected fail to reflect the spirit of justice.

The court emphasised that victims should not be treated merely as beneficiaries of state assistance but recognised as stakeholders in the process. Standards set without consultation with victims, it said, undermine democratic values and the principles of inclusive justice.

The bench also noted that the government cannot arbitrarily retreat from commitments it has made to victims. Under established doctrines of administrative law, the state cannot withdraw previously promised benefits or impose new restrictions without reasonable grounds. When revising criteria for distributing relief or introducing new conditions, the government has a constitutional obligation to safeguard victims' legitimate expectations, the court said.

The ruling further clarified that relief and reparation for conflict victims should not be viewed as acts of charity. “If the objective of the state is to assist victims, the means adopted to achieve that objective must not impose additional suffering,” the court said, adding that administrative barriers that undermine victims’ access to justice cannot be considered legally valid.

The ruling also stressed that reparation forms an integral part of truth and justice in Nepal’s transitional justice process. In cases involving families of the disappeared, the state’s obligation cannot be considered fulfilled merely by providing financial assistance unless it also discloses the fate and whereabouts of those who were forcibly disappeared.

Reparation, the court said, should go beyond financial assistance and must aim to restore victims' dignity and support their respectful reintegration into society. The victim's family say they are happy that the court has finally acted on their behalf.

“We have long been struggling for a victim-centric repartition policy. The victims' families are very happy at the court’s intervention,” said Bhagiram Chaudhary, former chair of the Conflict Victims’ Common Platform. “Now we want the government to act as the court directs.”

Around two decades since the Comprehensive Peace Accord, and 11 years after the transitional justice process formally commenced, the federal government has yet to draft a reparation policy.

“Some homework was done in the past, but that did not get continuity. We are not working on such a policy currently,” Man Bahadur Aryal, joint secretary at the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, told the Post.