Submit your Article

Suspended Chief Justice Cholendra Rana JBR deserves impeachment for all the malpractices he has committed as the head of the Supreme Court. His testimony before the Parliamentary committee has exposed the extent of corruption in the judiciary. For a long time, there were murmurs of nexus between politicians and justices.  Now, by the account of Rana himself, we know it for fact. There has been no comments from the political leaders regarding the charges against Rana, and their silence speaks volumes. Our judiciary has been bought—there is no other way of putting this. Our judges and justices engage in bargaining before handing down judgments. This episode will further erode people’s trust in the judiciary. A former chief justice has been outed for his corrupt ways. This cannot be easily dismissed. So will our political leaders take extreme measures to clean up the judiciary? Highly doubtful. They are equally responsible for the current mess. Lest it be forgotten, in 2021, parties in both ruling and opposition took to the street and publicly warned the Supreme Court of ‘consequences’ if the ruling on Parliament dissolution by then Prime Minister KP Oli is not delivered in their favor. They knew about the court’s dirty secret and they tried to use it as a bargaining chip. Even in the case of Rana’s impeachment, it has been revealed that top leaders from the ruling parties sent their emissaries to convince the former into tendering his resignation and saving his face. In 2021, a team led by justice Hari Krishna Karki in 2021 submitted a report stating that corruption and irregularities are rampant in the judiciary. It clearly spoke about ‘brokers’ who maintained the line of communication between justices and top leaders of political parties. But nothing came of that damning report. It is high time that someone took steps to reform the judiciary. But, the question is who will lead this reform. The cruel irony is that we need those same political parties to restore the sanctity of the judiciary. True, they are not going to act of their own volition or their conscience.   So, the media and civil society should press them into doing the right thing.

Many things need to be fixed, or torn down for that matter to turn Kathmandu into a livable city. Our myopic politicians and policymakers have left the metropolis a mess. Now, Mayor Balendra Shah has taken upon himself to clean up this mess. It’s a gargantuan task but Kathmandu residents are rallying behind the young mayor. His latest “bulldozer campaign” to enforce building code by demolishing basement shops, spaces actually meant for vehicle parking, has won him plaudits aplenty. Finally, Kathmandu has a leader who can stand up and show some teeth if necessary. Shah has demonstrated that he is not afraid to take drastic measures, even if that meant ruffling the feathers of political and corporate overlords. Surely, most of the ward chairs of Kathmandu are not pleased with Shah, who unlike them was elected as an independent candidate. Political candidates could have never done what Shah is doing, because they work at the bidding of their party leadership who are in cahoots with big businesses and corporations. Things such as infrastructure, transport, education, healthcare and environment determine the livability of a city. Kathmandu ranks among one of the most polluted cities in the world. The perennial waste management problem of Kathmandu continues to worsen, to say nothing of air and water pollution. If drastic and immediate measures are not enforced, Kathmandu will soon become a dangerous city to live in. A message for the city leaders: stand up behind your mayor. For once, Kathmandu appears to have a chance at redeeming itself. Shah does not have a strong political backing. Already, he is facing pushbacks and criticisms. Kathmandu residents and civil society should fully support him at times like these. Shah on his part also needs to amend his ways, because in some places he has been called out for showing rash behavior. While exercising his executive rights, he should be mindful of the constitution and the law. But the bottom line is there should not be any obstructions to his campaign, in any pretext. Shah’s works, though he is still in his early days of his mayoral tenure, show the promise that Kathmandu can do better.

Tribhuvan University (TU), the oldest and largest in the country, is again in the limelight for the wrong reasons. Excessive politics is destabilizing the institution all over again as it continues to be used by political parties to push their partisan interests. On August 29, the main opposition CPN-UML flagged this issue in the parliament, prompting speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota to ask the government to take measures to resolve the chronic problem. In the past three years, different student unions have padlocked TU offices for a total of 300 days. This time, it is the Nepal Student Union (NSU), a student wing of ruling Nepali Congress (NC), which is into the dirty act. Two years ago, NSU cadres had thrashed Assistant Professor Prem Chalaune. A case has been filed at Kathmandu District Court against those involved but the coalition government is trying to withdraw the case. Concerns over the security of TU teachers, who continue to face various threats, are growing. Clearly, university classes cannot be run in an atmosphere of insecurity. All political parties and student unions are equally responsible for the current state. Excessive politics is weakening the institution, degrading the equality of education, and boosting corruption. It is not only the unions; whichever party comes to power, they routinely interfere in the university’s functioning. For far too long, student unions have behaved like a law unto themselves, often with robust backing of their mother parties. Top political leaders cultivate them largely to be used to heat up the street during political protests or to hound their opposition. The student unions have little interest in actually helping improve the quality of education. The government should take immediate measures to resolve the ongoing problems and ensure complete security inside the university. Unions should in all cases be barred from disruptive activities like padlocking university offices, and their members must be punished when they threaten teachers and administrators. The unions should be helping with the university’s development as a learning environment for teachers and students alike. If not, they can be done away with.

The task of concluding the transitional justice component of the peace process is more complex than our top politicians would have us believe. They reckon war-era human rights issues can be settled through political consensus and lucrative reparations for conflict victims. But Nepal’s recent history has time and again proven this approach wrong. Consider the functioning of the transitional justice mechanisms in the past seven years. Despite an agreement among major parties there has hardly been any progress on providing justice to conflict victims, except for the completion of preliminary investigations in a handful of cases. In a fresh bid, the five-party coalition government has tabled an amendment bill to Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act 2014. But, as in the past, the ruling parties have failed to take conflict victims, the international community and the rights bodies into confidence. Despite some progressive provisions in the bill, stakeholders have raised concerns over some provisions that allow for granting of amnesty even in grave human rights violations. A few days ago, representatives of the United Nations and some powerful countries had met CPN (Maoist Center) Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal to flag their concerns over the new bill. Undue interference of the international community is undesired but their concerns also cannot be brushed aside, given the universal jurisdiction of human rights. It is up to Nepal’s political parties to settle war-era cases through domestic mechanisms in line with the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed in 2006. Whether we accept it or not, the international community is also a stakeholder in this process. The approach taken by Law Minister Govinda Prasad Sharma (Koirala) is thus under a question mark. He prepared the bill on the basis of consultation with top leaders of major parties but bypassed the transitional justice mechanisms and conflict victims. If the bill is passed in a hurry without addressing the concerns of all stakeholders, it might create more problems than it will help solve. Attempts to settle the war-era cases forcefully with majority support in parliament could backfire. Yes, transitional justice in Nepal has needlessly dragged on. But that should not be the reason to hurry things along without broad consultations with key stakeholders.