Kathmandu, February 15

Transitional justice bodies have decided to accept complaints of conflict victims, who could not register their cases earlier.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons had collected complaints from conflict victims for three months from mid-May to mid August in 2016. However, many victims couldn’t register their complaints due to various reasons, officials said.

CIEDP Spokesperson Bishnu Pathak said the commission would issue a notice by mid-March, urging all remaining conflict victims to file their complaints. The victims will be given a month to file their complaints, according to him.

“Many victims have informed us that could not file their cases earlier,” Pathak told The Himalayan Times. “Now we are going to give them one more chance.” The notice to be issued by the transitional justice body will also provide details of how the victims can lodge their complaints. CIEDP had collected as many as 2,888 disappearance related cases earlier.

Meanwhile, TRC has also decided to receive complaints from victims who had failed to file their complaints earlier.

TRC member Madhabi Bhatta told this daily that the body would take a decision to this effect once its regular business resumes. According to her, TRC office bearers’ meeting has not been held since the body’s mandate was extended by a year last week. Earlier, over 58,000 conflict-victims had lodged their cases with TRC.

According to Bhatta, although TRC formally stopped receiving complaints since mid-August, victims have been approaching the body with complaints relating to insurgency-era rights violations. “We are told that hundreds of genuine victims are still waiting to register their complaints,” she said.

The Cabinet on February 10 had extended the mandate of TRC, along with CIEDP, for one more year on ground of non-completion of their works. These twin instruments were set up on 10 February 2015 with a two-year mandate to investigate rights violations during the decade-long Maoist insurgency and recommend action against perpetrators and compensation to the victims.