Kathmandu, April 25

A total of 60 persons have so far applied for the posts of members and chairpersons of two transitional justice mechanisms — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons.

Of the 60 applications, 49 aspirants got their applications registered at the secretariat of the committee personally, while the rest applied through e-mails.

The extended deadline to file applications personally at the secretariat ended at 5:00pm today, but a person can still apply for the TRC, CIEDP posts through e-mail until 12:00 midnight.

The number of applications may rise, said Raja Ram Dahal of the secretariat.

Of the 49 applications registered with the secretariat personally, 11 have applied for both - chairpersons and members, four have applied only for chairpersons, and 34 for members.

Dahal said they had yet to segregate applications coming via e-mail since a few hours still remained for the expiry of the deadline.

According to Dahal, those filing applications personally include retired judges of the erstwhile appellate courts and retired secretaries of the government.

However, a member of the recommendation committee said on condition of anonymity that at least three former members of TRC and CIEDP who retired on April 13 were among the applicants. The committee member, however, did not divulge their names.

The selection process endorsed by the committee has provisioned that a person or institution can also recommend names for the TRC, CIEDP posts. For this, the committee has set deadline until April 30. Also, the committee can list any eligible person’s name even if that person has not filed an application or is not recommended by any person or institution within the set deadline, considering that person’s special qualification.

Associations of conflict victims — Conflict Victims Common Platform and Conflict Victims National Alliance — have said they will recommend names for the posts of TRC, CIEDP members and chairpersons.

Upon the completion of the application, the committee will prepare a final list of candidates and publish their names in a daily newspaper, seeking complaints against them. The committee’s member Prakash Osti said they would publish a five-day notice seeking complaints, most probably on May 3. “Only after that, the process of recommending members and chairpersons of TRC and CIEDP will begin,” he said.

As per the Transitional Justice Act’s Section 3 (2), the commissions will have five members, including at least one female member, each.

As per the act’s Section 4, a member or chairperson of the commissions should have at least bachelor’s degree from a recognised education institution; should not be member of any political party at the time of their appointment; should have high moral character; should have worked in the areas of human rights, peace, law, conflict management and sociology; and should have attained the age of 35.

In the case of chairperson, the person should be a former justice of the Supreme Court, or a former chief judge of an appellate court, or should have worked in the special post of judiciary, or should be eligible to be appointed as a Supreme Court justice.

As per Section 5 of the act, a person will be deemed ineligible to be a member or a chairperson of the commissions if s/he is a foreign national, has been convicted by a court in cases involving moral turpitude or has been convicted for grave human rights violation.