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Flip-flopping Law Enforcement Tradition of Nepal

Prakash Bom - 3/23/2008

On several occasions international community has called 'Flip-flopping Law Enforcement Tradition of Nepal' the culture of impunity. What elements of society encourage the culture of impunity is the question perhaps nation's ruling elites, responsible judiciary personalities and political leaderships are primarily ignoring it. It seems as if the culture is so deeply embedded in our daily socio-political and economic life that practice of impunity has become our one of the important survival tools. However, nation has failed to realize in every level that the democracy will not fly far with the culture of impunity. It will soon fall apart as it had been before and as it is now with the staggering socio-political and economic conflicts, which are the results of injustice basically caused by the practice of impunity.

In my opinion people of such culture need thorough sociological and anthropological studies and socio-psychosomatic diagnoses because none of us is willing to comply with the rule of law. Yet we cheer democracy knowingly or unknowingly with the notion of gangsterous affiliations to the political party to perpetuate the culture of impunity. The culture itself is the evidence that has had been in nation's history protecting criminals with the safety net under the umbrella of nepotism, favoritism, and the perversion of religious compassion in every law enforcement level. That's why 'The World Factbook' has categorized legal system of Nepal as based on Hindu legal concepts and English common law; which has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction.

We have socio-political, socio-economic, socio-ethnical and socio-psychological blockades against implementing law enforcements in our society because both authorities of law enforcement and the violators manage to overrule the justice in every level. Blockades are raised on the spot of crime because we have never setup a system or logistics to implement the basic law enforcement procedures. For example, Amnesty International has clearly made their findings public that the most of the armed groups of Terai have no political objectives yet they have been continuing criminal activities on daily basis upon ordinary people, particularly people of hills, who have displaced and are in majority have confined to the headquarters of the Terai districts.

This is how law enforcement in Nepal has failed from its implementations because it can neither make clear distinctions nor it can give directives. For example, a construction truck that carries sand in the local residence of Kathmandu gets caught with the police check-post without the business license. Since the police have no directives to issue the ticket against the violation of the law either to pay fines or file petition the police individual(s) take the cash money without giving receipt to the offender. Such a lawlessness practice is prevalent all over northern states of India and Nepal.

How can law enforcement be implemented without the set of procedures (logistics) against the alleged offender to proceed with the law? Laws that are formulated in the law-books (Muluki Ain) with the Hindu's law concepts by the bookish erudite of the law, without their directives and procedural steps. Thus the law enforcement cannot be implemented. However, if the directives are laid out and procedures are set then the law enforcement can be implemented with the capacity of system to keep the intact records of the crimes committed by the individuals. For example if there is a ticketing system then once the ticket is issued against the crime committed by the individual the ticket itself is bond to keep the record in different departments of the law enforcement – district attorney, finance, district judge (if petition is filed for not guilty) and finally the entire nation can share the data.

Law enforcement tickets should not be issued only against the helpless who have no affiliations with the authorities for avoiding fines and petitions. It should be against all crimes – political or social or criminal committed by all ranks - socio-political, socio-economic or socio-ethnic. First of all, the law enforcement personnel such as police must be trained with the directives and procedural steps for issuing tickets against the alleged offender. Without such procedural training the law cannot be enforced. Instead it allows law enforcement personnel get corrupt, but if the trained law enforcement personnel issue ticket then they will procedurally be bound with the networking of the ticketing system.

If the ticketing system is set as mandatory procedures for the law enforcement officer to issue tickets against the alleged offenders then both ticket issuer and receiver are traceable in the system. For example, under such system if the police take the cash without issuing the ticket to the alleged offender then he or she must be accountable by the rule of law. Any public witness or the alleged offender himself or herself, who escaped the crime paying cash, the system must give option for the offender to bring the case against the police officer in the court with the legal compensations to wave or give less severe fines. As a result, the police officer will have no other window of choice except to comply with the procedure of the law enforcement.

Since the culture of impunity allows all of us get corrupt the current state of insecurity and lack of law and order is the evidence in which cadres of main political parties are not only breaching the electoral codes of conduct set for CA elections but also engaged in all sort of atrocities against their own members of alliance (SPA). So far as per media the cadres of Maoist party have committed the most of the atrocities. Yet the Maoist leaderships are blaming royalist regressive forces for such atrocities all over the nation, but the evidence is lacking from such arguments. It seems as if the Maoist leaderships are creating electoral confusion and chaos in the nation with the apprehension that they are about to lose the CA elections, which is not realistic because no single political party going to sweep the election with its overwhelming victory.

The nation at this point of political crises is seriously looking forward to the national unity of the majority in the diversity. The unity for the political consensus on political issues depends on the majority of the diversity, which have committed to the 'Federal Democratic Republic' establishment for the multiparty parliamentary democracy. The first and foremost challenge for the nation is to accomplish free and fair CA elections to establish federal democratic republic institutions with the unity of majority in the diversity of political parties. If Maoist party fails with such vision for the national unity to begin with then their dream cannot be achieved at the gun point with the intimidations and atrocities against CA candidates of other political parties.

It is people's individual freedom to decide whom or which party they want to vote. However, if political parties intimidate them for the vote then in democracy it is not free and fair election. The current scale of intimidations among the political parties (Maoist, UML, NC) indicates chance for accelerating threat to the electorates of the constituencies. The question is whether political parties' cadres will comply with the rule of law. If they do then those who have committed atrocities to the candidates of other political parties must be brought to justice. Political parties must comply with the rule of law to win votes of people for the CA elections.

It is time for all to have faith in the unity of majority in the diversity with the similar political objectives, which the Prime Minister has called lately for the continuation of the rule of coalition government after CA elections. Since the army of Nepal (RNA) is committed to defend multiparty parliamentary democracy and national integrity, the chance for any dictator to takeover is slim. What people of Nepal have to aspire for now is the establishment of institutions of multiparty parliamentary democracy for all political parties to commit in sharing the culture of the proportional representations of diversity in the future democratic practice.