KATHMANDU, JUNE 9
The Supreme Court has quashed its administration's decision not to admit a writ petition that sought to punish Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai for alleged war crimes.
A single bench of Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai quashed the SC Registrar's decision to not allow former Maoist child soldiers, including Lenin Bista to file a petition against PM Dahal and Bhattarai.
Petitioners had stated in their writ that they would soon register at the SC that they were forcibly drafted into the Maoist army and the CPN-Maoist should take responsibility for inducting minors into its army, starting the people's war and causing loss of lives and property.
The petitioners stated that the government had undermined the prestige of former minor Maoist soldiers when it used the term 'disqualified combatants' in the government documents, including in the new fiscal budget. They said the government should provide long-term assistance and not short-term reliefmeasures to former child soldiers.
Bista said that he was falsely implicated in theft and call bypass cases to discourage him from pursuing the case of child soldiers.
Bista, who said he continued to face security threats, urged the court to make provisions for his security.
The petitioners said that they were given the tag of ineligible combatants before they were disqualified by the UN- MIN. They said that international human rights laws, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Conventions on the Rights of the Child had outlawed recruit-ment of minors in any army, yet they were inducted into the Maoist Army and Maoist leaders should be prosecuted under war crimes laws.
Forcing an innocent child to carry guns, to work as spy and to carry war materials is defined as war crime in international law, they said in their petition. They said perpetrators of human rights violations could be tried in the international court based in the Hague and in that case they would depose before the court. They urged the court to quash the defendants' decisions that deprived them of their identity as child soldiers. They also demanded reparation and other benefits that they, as child soldiers, were entitled to.
The petitioners also urged the court to direct the concerned agencies to prosecute PM Dahal and Bhattarai under war crimes laws. They sought interim order to suspend the PM until the war crime case against him was adjudicated.
They have also named the National Human Rights Commission, home ministry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons, and others as defendants.
The SC quashed its registrar's decision not to admit writ that sought to punish PM Dahal and Bhattarai
A version of this article appears in the print on June 10, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
