KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 17

Legal experts say that the government should form an independent judicial probe commission to investigate the incidents loss of lives and property that occurred during Gen Z protest on September 8 and 9.

Senior Advocate Raju Prasad Chapagai who is also the coordinator of Accountability Watch Committee, said that good governance and the rule of law was among the key demands of the Gen G protesters and the government must ensure that to honour the sacrifices of Gen Z protestors, the judicial commission's report should be implemented.

The government has failed to live up to people's expectation when it comes to implementation of judicial probe commission's report. The government has not made some probe commission's report public and it's bizarre that cases had to be filed in the court to force the government to make such reports public, Chapagai added.

I don't think Gen Z committed vandalism and arson. We never saw such a huge loss of lives and property in one-two days' protest. It appears that anti-social elements deliberately targeted individual's and public property putting those properties to fire, he said. Chapagai said that the country lost not only precious lives and valuable properties but also old records and evidence and 'we' don't even know at this stage what would be consequence of the destruction of evidence.

Chapagai said judicial probe must ensure transparency and action plan for its implementation or else new judicial probe would meet the same fate as those formed in the past.

WE saw in the past many judicial probe reports stated excessive use of force by the security forces but in practice those reports were never implemented in the past. If such things happened again, Gen Z would not get justice, he said.

Chapagai said the country must not allow impunity. Had the state ensured end to impunity earlier, such a loss of life and property wouldn't have happened , he added.

Former Justice of the Supreme Court Balaram KC said that the government should immediately activate criminal law to prosecute those responsible for death of innocent people during Gen Z protests. He said a high-level probe commission can be formed under an independent civil society member under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1969. KC said the probe commission to be formed by the government should preferably has three months' time to investigate and submit its report and the government should have another three months to implement the report. If the tenure of the commission extends beyond the tenure of the interim government, then the risk of the non-implementation of the probe commission's report would be high.

A new government could be formed under a political party leader after the next general election, given the previous examples, new government might not implement the report for political reasons, including the reason for intending to benefit their political cadres/leaders, KC added.