Kathmandu, December 14

The second national conference of government attorneys will be held from December 23 to 25 in Kathmandu.

Attorney General Agni Prasad Kharel today said at a press conference that 379 government attorneys and 80 observers will take part in the conference.

AG Kharel said the conference will discuss how the government attorneys could make watertight cases by relying on scientific evidence.

The Office of the Attorney General issued a press release at the programme, saying the national conference will also provide the government attorneys a platform to orient them on the new penal code and to develop common concepts on the application of the provisions of the code.

The conference is also expected to review the second five-year plan launched by the OAG, identify new areas of reforms, prepare blueprint for organisational and other reforms in the OAG and its subordinate offices, and to prepare strategies to effectively defend government cases, particularly those involving  public properties.

AG Kharel said the new penal code had increased the workload of government attorneys, as it required more involvement of government attorneys from the day of somebody’s arrest to the day a convict was awarded sentence.

In response to a journalist’s query, Kharel said there were gaps in the penal code about which his office had informed the concerned departments. He hoped that the gaps would be addressed gradually. “Some of the gaps will be addressed as soon as the bill to amend the penal code, which has been passed by the Upper House of the Parliament, is passed by the Lower House of the Parliament,” he said.

The new penal code, he said, did not clearly say how the government should recover stolen goods from somebody’s house when the fact that those goods were stolen had been established, but the fact that who the stolen  goods belonged to  had not been established.

On the occasion, OAG also gave away certificate of revenue law expert government attorneys to 13 senior government attorneys of the OAG, including Sanjeeb Raj Regmi, Narayan Prasad Paudel, Gopal Rijal and Krishna Mohan Koirala.