Rs 4b in fines yet to be raised
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KATHMANDU, NOV 05 -
As if spiralling lawlessness hasn’t already eroded public faith in the justice stystem, a look at enforcement of court verdicts points to the height of impunity. Many verdicts, where culprits were sentenced to prison or fined or both, are unimplemented.
Statistics of the Supreme Court (SC) reveal law enforcing authorities haven’t raised Rs. 4.17 billion slapped as fines on those convicted within the last 70 years. According to the SC, there is a total of 81,007 years of prison sentences still to be served.
Ram Krishna Timilsina, Registrar at the SC, said there are numerous reasons behind the failure to implement judgements. The reasons include a lack of monitoring
mechanisms in the centre and
lack of systematic filing of judgements, affecting information retrieval.
Additional reasons for the lax implementation, according to Timilsina, include a lack of coordination with the security forces in taking legal action on the verdicts and limited accessibility of court verdicts to the public.
The SC has come up with a Judgement Execution Directorate (JED) whereby it is working to make the judiciary more systematic, transparent, trustworthy and accessible to the public, Timilsina said.
The JED is striving to end impunity with the newly coined motto, “Justice for All, Trusted by All and Accessible to All”. Timilsina said that within the next couple of months the public will begin to feel the difference.
JED officials say that it has not been able to function effectively for two major reasons. Firstly, a lack of public awareness about the role of JED and the services it offers are to blame. Secondly, officials believe a lack of sufficient manpower to manage the heavy backlog of unimplemented court verdicts is hindering the process.
Since it started functioning in July this year, the JED has received only about a dozen complaints regarding court verdict implementation.
“Very few people know that such an office exists, so we need to make it known,” said Shiva Pokhrel, an official at the JED.
Posted on: 2010-11-05 08:52
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