Nepal’s Justice System Reverts To Manual After Digital Collapse
Birat Anupam
Due to the arson and vandalism following Nepal’s Gen-Z protests on September 9, Nepal’s 23 courts were damaged partly and wholly.
In Supreme Court alone, 20,034 lawsuit files of the Supreme Court were damaged. Only 4,200 are only left untouched. 197,000 lawsuit archives were destroyed.
In Kathmandu District court, more than 3,500 lawsuit files were damaged and the court building is not livable.
Not all courts were torched and vandalized. High Court Patan is one of them. The physically intact court is digitally damaged. According to Parbati Hitan, Information Officer at the court, the court is operating in full swing since October 7, one month after the protest.
However, the court is having headache to run regularly. All the civil proceedings, criminal proceedings and writ procedures are conducted manually. ‘’Our Case Management Sytem (CMS) was operated from the Supreme Court and it was damaged on September 9’’, Hitan told the NTV World. She added, ‘’we are going manual to help people.’’
Lawyers are voicing their unease for both digital and physical damages on judiciary. ‘’We are left jobless’’, Bikash Bhattarai, Former Senior Member at Supreme Court Bar Association, said, ‘’Supreme Court is not back to track. Kathmandu District Court is not operational.’’
According to Nirajan Pandey, Assistant Spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Nepal, besides Supreme Court’s damages, 6,533 ongoing lawsuit files and 706,071 lawsuit archive files were damaged in various other courts of Nepal.
Nepal has 85 courts including the Supreme Court, 7 High Court and 77 District Court. Supreme Court also consists other various courts like Special Court, Revenue Tribunals, Labor Court, Administrative Court, Foreign Employment Tribunal, Debt Recovery Tribunal and Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal.
