Nepal's human rights commission has wielded anew its constitutional power to publicly name government officials accused of human rights violations in an apparent attempt to pressure the government to take action on its findings.
On Jan. 30, the commission
released a list of 60 public officials who were implicated in such violations during the fiscal year 2022-2023. This marked the second time it had made such a list public. In October 2020, the commission
publicly identified 286 civil servants embroiled in alleged human rights violations, only 30 of whom have been held accountable.
The latest list includes 32 current and former Nepal police officials, 12 government officials, 10 former leaders of the Communist Party of Nepal, four army officials, and one each from the Armed Police Force and the National Investigation Department.
The Nepal Constitution has
long authorized the rights watchdog to publicly disclose the identity of accused rights violators since it was created over two decades ago. However, it was only four years ago that the watchdog exercised this authority.
In 2020, Mandira Sharma, senior international legal advisor at the International Commission of Jurists,
said that while publishing the names of those responsible for human rights abuses was an “important step,” the report had “exposed the fact that the commission has struggled with a lack of investigative capacity, failing in many cases to summon alleged perpetrators or demand documentation.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) similarly
acknowledges the importance of naming and shaming alleged human rights violators in both public and private spheres. Yet it cautions that some rights violators will, when exposed, flaunt their abuses to score political points instead of rectifying their errors.
Besides naming and shaming the individuals or institutions directly responsible for rights abuses, groups can widen their scope to include the financiers and broad networks of support that enable rights violators, HRW said.
Since its establishment in 2000, Nepal's human rights body has made several recommendations, of which
only 15 percent have been fully implemented.
Last year, the human rights watchdog demanded that the Nepali government investigate more than 100 persons involved in the
2007 Gaur massacre, which resulted in 27 deaths and 115 wounded.
However, months after it was notified of the rights body's request to probe those accused of involvement in the massacre, the government
had not taken action.