KATHMANDU: Family members of conflict victims demanded that the transitional justice mechanisms – Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) – do not replace judicial proceedings at regular courts.

Issuing a press statement on the occasion of the 32nd International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, the Conflict Victims’ Common Platform (CVCP) demanded that the commissions should not be given a power to grant or recommend the amnesties for crimes under international law.

The statement signed by CVCP Chairperson Suman Adhikari and General Secretary Ram Kumar Bhandari also calls for ensuring victims’ meaningful participation in every step of the commission processes, and ensuring victims/witness protection law.

“Necessary regulations and rules, guidelines, procedures for the operation of the Commissions should be developed in broader consultation and meaningful participation of human rights defenders and victims’ community,” the statement read.

According to CVCP, the practice of enforced disappearance during the 1996-2006 Nepal armed conflict was among the worst such cases in the world. More than 1,400 victims of enforced disappearance are still unknown, it said.

The Platform accused that signatories of the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord – the government and the then CPN-Maoist – of not standing by their promises to safeguard rights of families of the disappeared.

Stating that enforced disappearance constitutes a multiple violation of the human rights and has repeatedly been described by the UN General Assembly as “an offence to human dignity” and a grave violation of international human rights law, the Platform pointed out that the issue, however, has not been recognised as a crime under Nepali law.