Rayamajhi report: Legal experts doubt action

Kathmandu, November 20:

Though the High-Level Investigation Commission has recommended legal action against the suppressors of the April mass movement, including the king, some legal experts have expressed doubts on the possible action the government may take against the guilty.

“Since the commission has recommended the government to promulgate a new law without carefully examining the existing laws, the implementation of the report may be doubted,” Dr Rajit Bhakta Pradhnanga told this daily. He said that though there is an international practice of ending impunity and punishing those guilty of crime against humanity, the state must exercise powers within the existing legal parametres. It can enact a new law only if such laws to bring the guilty to book are absent.

“This report may meet the same fate as the Mallik Commission report, which was never implemented though it had listed many rights violators,” he said.

Dr Shankar Kumar Shrestha also pointed out the commission’s recommendation that the government enact a new law though Nepal has enough laws to deal with rights violators. Nepal is a signatory to a number of intentional rights laws and one can be prosecuted on the basis of those laws, he said.

A member of the Commission, Ram Prasad Shrestha, also an advocate, however, claimed that new laws can be enacted to punish rights violators in the country.