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| Kathmandu, Wednesday January 29, 2003 Magh 15, 2059. |
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Penal reforms
Governments, one after another, have made public
pronouncements in favour of penal reforms in tune with the need of time. Our penal laws,
system and practices are age-old and, to a large extent, they do not accept the modern
concept that penal system and reforms are interlinked. The Penal Reform International, a
Paris-based international body, has been taking a keen interest in penal and jail reforms
in Nepal after an in-depth study of the two systems.
PRI’s South Asian Regional Office (SARO)
has come forward with suggestions for drastic changes in the existing penal system. Human
rights and prevention of child abuse are the focused areas for reforms. Imprisonment is
not a punishment, and its main aim should be to rescue a person from the stigma of crime
that he has committed under certain circumstances. The accused or convicted people
continue to remain members of a society, and unless they are proven threat to a civilised
society, they should be encouraged to play some more positive roles in the society.
Similarly, the SARO recommendation makes it amply clear that jail inmates should not be
deprived of certain basic rights and a dignified living.
With more complicated nature of crime engulfing
the modern world, governments are resorting to practices or authoring laws which challenge
the basic principle of jurisprudence that a person is innocent unless proved guilty. In
many suspected crimes, the onus to prove innocence has been left to the accused. As a
result, they are forced to spend a substantial part of time in prison pending the trial.
The SARO study sponsored by the Department for International Development’s (DFID)
Enabling State Programme( ESP) in fact, questions these practices in a subtle way. But it
is up to the government concerned, in this case Nepal to ensure that the rule of law has
to prevail in practice, and no law should be made in contravention.
It more or less insists that the release of the
accused on bail should be recognised as their rights so long as they are willing to
cooperate with the investigation and the judicial process. The criminal administration
system and the justice system have to be far less ruthless, and the state cannot function
on the principle of impunity. SARO recommendation assumes wider significance at a time
when scores of people—mostly politicians and bureaucrats—have been lodged in
jail for months during a trial of corruption cases.
The much felt need for pro-reform changes in the
Juvenile Act 1993 has also been incorporated in the SARO study. The country needs to have
a separate juvenile system in conformity with the UN standards—a pledge that most
nations, including Nepal, have undertaken. But the ultimate responsibility to implement
the report lies with the government, and there is no reason why it should be delayed. |
