The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has proposed an amendment to the commission’s act with mandatory provision for the Office of the Attorney General to implement its recommendations for action against rights violators. While the government has been claiming the implementation rate to be 30 percent, the commission in its report released on Wednesday has put the implementation rate at 14 percent. Dewan Rai and Shashwat Acharya spoke to former Chief Justice and current Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Anup Raj Sharma about the implementation of the commission’s recommendations, the situation of human rights in the country, rights violations during the Madhes agitation, and the transitional justice process.

How do you assess the situation of the implementation of NHRC’s recommendations to the government?

To be frank, the situation is disappointing. The law has been restrictive. The NHRC can only recommend a compensation of Rs 300,000 for the victims of human rights violations, whereas the government can provide a bigger compensation. Moreover, the government does not always comply with the commission’s recommendations. For example, if the government has already provided a compensation of Rs 400,000 to someone, it will not provide more even if the commission recommends it.

Is that not against the Supreme Court ruling that the recommendations of the NHRC have to be implemented?

It is. And it is not limited to the recommendations on the amount of compensation. The government should also implement other recommendations of the NHRC, such as the filing of criminal or other cases.   

What kind of a human-rights situation in the country does the weak implementation of NHRC’s recommendations point to?

We have to look at it from two sides. The NHRC has been made a constitutional body. It has been accorded the right to make recommendations on a range of issues. These are positive aspects. However, these aspects are diluted when the government does not implement the commission’s recommendations. The government—not just the current one but also the previous ones—has not been sensitive. We have asked the Attorney General to devise a system to ensure better implementation, and there are reasons to be hopeful about improvements but we will have to see how things will unfold in the future. Better implementation will also improve the government’s image, both nationally and internationally.

There have been reports of human rights violations during the recent Madhes movement. Has the NHRC been raising this issue?

It has been doing that. The regional office of NHRC has been active from the very day of the Tikapur incident.  Some people from the central office also visited the site and made a detailed report. If you look at the press notes from that period, you will notice that we have condemned the killings of unarmed security personnel as well as the death of ordinary citizens and the torching of Tharu houses during curfew hours. And our regional office also rescued some Tharu women hiding in the fields to save their lives. We have asked the government to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.

In addition, we have pointed at the lapses in security arrangements. Why, for example, were security personnel deployed without preparation and weapons during the agitation? Nine of them were killed in Tikapur. Or why were they inactive when mobs torched people’s houses, destroyed an FM station or looted stores during curfew hours? Why was an injured constable taken to the hospital through an agitated area, where he was killed by the agitators, and not through the main highway? Why was a helicopter rescue not provided? In some places, we saw there were no helmets for the constables. We have said that there has to be investigation on the top brass of the security forces. We have done a study on the violence during the Madhes movement and we will release our report within a few days.

The NHRC’s hands are tied in that it does not have the right to take action. It can only recommend. If someone has not read our reports or press releases, they may get the impression that the commission has not done much in terms of prosecuting rights violators, which is outside the preview of our mandate. It is the Attorney General’s responsibility to register cases against violators.

Amnesty International (AI) in a recent report on the Tikapur incident has claimed that most of the defendants it interviewed said they were tortured and forced to sign confessions. We have also looked at copies of the defendants’ statements, which also suggest use of force. Sometimes, the NHRC’s reports are not given adequate coverage by the media. This is because the majority of Nepali readers find politics more interesting than other topics.

Some of NHRC’s reports have been critical of the way the state has handled the Madhesi movement, particularly with regard to the use of excessive force against the agitators. And the government has in turn been critical of NHRC. How would you respond to such criticisms of your work?

It is worth repeating that NHRC is a constitutional, and not a governmental, body. The constitution has ensured its autonomy. In any country, it is the government that is primarily responsible for safeguarding human rights. When the government fails to fulfil that responsibility, it is the commission’s duty to act as a watchdog and question the government without any hesitation. The NHRC would not be doing its job if it always supported the government. We met Prime Minister Oli, just as we met former Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, to brief him on our work, and while there might have been some misunderstandings, it is not true that the prime minister scolded us, as reported by a weekly paper. The government or the prime minister may not have been pleased with some of our reports, but it is not our job to please the government. Our role is to reveal our findings, some of which may be critical of the government.

Our investigations have revealed that the government did not follow laws on crowd control. They are not laws formulated by the NHRC. They were formulated by the government and passed by Parliament. According to them, security personnel can, as a last resort, shoot at agitators but only below their knees. But we have found from our ground investigation that bullets were fired on the chest and the back, and even at onlookers standing in their balcony. If the government takes action against the security personnel who flouted the law, it will deter similar tendencies in the future. Not everybody has to be jailed; there can be departmental action against rule violators too.

What do you think is stopping the government from enforcing the laws then?

The government is not ready to accept that its personnel have violated human rights. Post-mortem reports have shown which part of the body the bullets struck. We have shown pictures to the government in which a teenager was surrounded on all sides by the police and cudgelled. But we have not said that it is only the government that has violated human rights; protestors have done so too. As I said before, we have asked the government to conduct its own investigation.

Let’s talk about the ongoing transitional justice process. Have you played your part of monitoring the process as stated in the act?

I have told the two transitional bodies—the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP)—that we will support them. We welcome the commissions, but some laws need to be amended to make them effective. They have to be provided with necessary resources. We are exerting pressure on the government to pass the laws necessary to give teeth to these commissions. If they are still inefficient, then they will deserve criticism. These are commissions formed for a particular purpose. We have said that they have to be victim centric.

The NHRC still has unresolved cases from the conflict era, which we are still investigating. Unlike the two commissions, our mandate is not time-bound and our work is continuous.

More than 55,000 cases have been registered at the transitional justice bodies. If the victims are not satisfied at the end, what recourse can they take?

To be frank, I am also not sure. The law is silent on what happens to cases that the two commissions cannot process or decide on. The government has to pass clear laws on that. The authenticity of the registered cases have to be established as well.