Around the time the National Human Rights Commission was set up in Nepal in 2000, I wrote a letter to editor (in the Kathmandu Post), arguing that such a commission, funded by the state no less, was bound to fail to be an impartial body to look into legitimate human rights abuses.

It was like, as my analogy went, setting up a version of the state-funded Nepal Television or Radio Nepal to deliver, well, "impartial" news.

Just not gonna happen.

My point was: Human rights monitoring was/is something that's best left to independent and competing organisations, and that the state should stay away from it to focus its resources on strengthening the court system, which is awfully weak in Nepal.

The composition of the Commission in 2000 was like this:

1. Nayan Bdr. Khatri (pro-palace; old Panchayat hand)
2. Sushil Pyakurel (pro-UML)
3. Kapil Shrestha (pro-Nepali Congress)
4. Indira Rana (a token woman member), and so on.

So, you see, right from the beginning, NHRC was set up as some sort of a "mili-juli" operation among various political forces.

But things did not turn out that way. Internal squabbles, poor leadership, sex scandals, conceptual muddle, and lack of resources hobbled the Commision from day one.

And the Commission's record, however you look at it, has been dismal. Even its own "what have we done in the last five years?" book says that it was only able
to address about 10 per cent of problems that had landed on its lap.

Now the King has constituted the new NHRC.
Here's the line-up:

1. Nayan Bdr. Khatri (pro-palace; old Panchayat hand, back in the saddle)

2. Senior journalist Gokul Pokhrel (who is really NOT a journalist but someone who has been running various donor-funded journalism-related organisations)

3. Former Justice at the Supreme Court Sushila Singh "Shilu" (a token woman whose court rulings no one remembers)

4. President of Human Rights Organisation of Nepal (HURON) Sudip Pathak (why this guy would accept to be on NHRC instead of creating halla from outside is beyond my understanding)

5. Former senior official at the Election Commission, Ram Dayal Rakesh (a harmless chap).

Given this new line-up, what has been the reaction?
Rights groups are now saying that the new formation of NHRC is unconstitutional.

In other words, instead of asking whether the state has any right to use taxpayers' money to feed these bureaucrats to "monitor" human rights situation (especially given how khattam the Commision's previous record has been) when there are plenty of such organisations out there, these protesting activists are qubbling over a minor issue and missing the big picture.

Nepal does NOT need a white elephant like National Human Rights Commision where these so-called rights activists rotate in an out as ill-performing bureaucrats.

Nepal needs better laws, better court systems, and better enforcement.

Else, just as political forces used the NHRC for its own purposes in 2000, and just as the King has used it for his own purpose, any political party will use it for its own purposes in future -- ill-serving the genuine cause of human rights.

oohi
ashu