Local Bodies
Forum For Dispute Settlement

By Mukti Rijal

THE LOCAL self governance act has widened the mandates of the local bodies especially in the jurisdictions relating to settlement of the local disputes. The village development committees and the municipalities have been entrusted with powers and functions as if they are primarily responsible forustice dispensing at the local level.

Power delegation

The act has for the first time bracketed the municipalities as the bodies responsible to exercise certain powers and functions for resolution of the local disputes. However, the powers and the functions entrusted to VDCs provided under the section 33 of the Act have been conditional and, therefore, not been put into effect. It is left to the discretion of the government to decide about how and when the provisions would be made operational through notification in the Nepal Gazette. The government has not decided yet far about it thereby shelving the provisions relating to dispute settlement. There may be some reasons why the provision in the act are put in the cold store. One basic reason should be the existing gap between the competence of the legal provisions and the poor institutional capacity of local bodies to assure of the successful implementation of the mandates. The government should be mulling over how to make the provision operative to realise the intents and purpose of the law.

It is to be noted that the Local self governance rules adopted to lay down an elaborate scheme of procedures for the implementation of the act has worked out in minute details about how to go about for execution of the provision stipulated in the section 33 of the act. However, the procedures laid down smack of the sophistication and complexity as if the local bodies are more or less a kind of judicial institutions. Procedures of the formal judicial kind are grafted in to the law which might be difficult for local bodies to implement through full adherence to the principles of the natural justice. Mediation committee has been envisaged as the real mechanism to act as the processor of the disputes and finally sort out the problems at the local level. The persons to be included in the list of the mediation committee need to be of integrity and honesty in whom local people repose trust and faith. Some of the VDC office bearers this writer talked to recently expressed their reservation on whether if they could find persons of independent and impartial character to be enlisted in the mediation board as required by the law. Political parties are active at the local level to spread out their wings and bring people under their influence. This has contributed to the excessive politicisation of the local affairs as a consequence of which partisan interests rule the roost. Impartiality and independence has been blown to smithereens.

Difficulties

Another difficult aspect the VDC office bearers this writer talked to indicate is relating to the technical and formal aspect of the justice administration at the local level. The law specifies for a definite kind of procedures which local bodies should adhere to in letter and spirit. Do the VDCs in general have the capacity to follow the legal requirement so that justice is not only done but seem to be done? The existing man power in VDCs is the secretary who is called upon to discharge functions of various kinds and types. VDC secretaries are themselves loaded enough and find it burdensome to carry out the normal volume of work. Can they undertake the tasks that are involved in the dispensation of justice at the local level ? Do they have the training to provide necessary services relating to the the administration of the justice ? VDC office bearers therefore emphasise that the local bodies should be provided with manpower trained in the discipline of law. Then only VDCs can acquire a minimum of capacity to execute tasks relating to justice dispensing at the local level.

Source of fund ?

The crucial issue is the provision of trainings for persons enlisted in the mediation committee and the elected office bearers. Trainings should be conducted in a continuing basis as the persons to be included in the committee may change depending upon the nature of the dispute. Moreover, as the parties to the case are free to propose the name of mediator to act on their behalf, it is likely that the list gets expanded which, in turn, will be needing more training and orientations. Can the government mobilise resources and organisation to create human resource development centres at least at the district level so that training opportunities are promoted at the local level? This is a moot point.

Local bodies should be strengthened as justice dispensing institutions at the local level. They can reduce load of the court as alternative dispute resolution mechanism while at the same time delivering real justice at the community. It is high time adequate attention is paid to ensure that the legal provision is implemented signifying to the success of judicial decentralisation.

Library Services & Right To Information

By Madhusudan Karki

THE Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990 guarantees basic human rights to every citizen of Nepal. Thus every citizen has the right to demand and receive information on any matter of public importance.

Importance

Information of public importance is created by different national and international organisations, government offices, research organisations and universities individuals. Government departments and ministries often deal with many matters of public importance. The created information from different sources should be communicated to masses of people living in rural as well as urban areas through printed and electronic media in some extend.

Journalism that plays the crucial role in disseminating of information through printed and electronic forms is the fourth organ of the government. Article 13 (2) of the Constitution mentions that no press can be closed or seized for printing any news item, articles or other reading materials. And, there is no restriction for the registration of newspapers or periodicals for publishing any news item, articles or other reading materials.

All the ideologies, inventions, thinkings, planning, decisions expressed by politicians, scientists, educationists, planners, decision makers authors and the artists cannot be covered by the journalism sector alone. Hence, different types of documents such as books, reports, thesises, standards, patents, gazettes, brochures, monographs, plans with full information are often published enormously by the individuals, government departments, and other organisations. All these publications are treated as the effective means of recorded information for scholarly communication. And, these records are also considered as the effective and authentic means to gather the wealth of information generated by man over the years for the present and for posterity. Yet no rules, regulations and acts have been formulated for acquisition, collection, preservation, process, retrieve, disseminate and marketing of scholarly information in Nepal.

In such case how the right to information of scholarly communication will be possible ? To meet the demand of scholarly information of every citizen through the supply of documents in the form of print media or electronic forms a properly planned library and information system should be implemented from grassroot level to the top level by the government.

Mass media, specially telecommunication technology has revolutionised information communication through different devices. As far as global information transfer and access are concerned Nepalese are no longer separated by the mountains. Today, any one can directly dial almost anywhere in the world. The three principal areas voice, video and data for information transmission have been possible through satellite communication technology.

Computers, as advanced information technology, have been used for information services in some field. The combination of computer and telecommunication technologies have created global village atmosphere.

But Nepal is isolated from better communication network. The reason is that Nepal does not have its own total bibliographic databases in the web. It is not only the matter of website. There is great lacking of total databases of literature generated from the country. This has hindered the effective implementation of Right to Information for general public. To provide any information on publications and broadcasting there must be comprehensive, pinpointed and exhaustive databases either in manual form or in electronic form at different levels. The main function of a library or information centre is to create such databases of their holdings according to the nature, scope and specialisation. To provide effective and scientific information services to the masses of people living in urban and rural areas through the contents and the texts of scholarly information recorded in the electronic form or printed form there must be enough well-developed and designed library and information systems in the country. The system should be handled by the properly educated professionals of library and information science. If the library and information system could be developed from village level to the central level with the involvement of professional manpower, only then the right to information for scholarly communication will be possible.

In the global context the education provided through the use of computer, communication technology and traditional librarianship is known as information science. The application of library and information science, over the past few years, has revolutionised the life and work of people.

Most of the Nepalese are familiar with mass media such as telephone, radio, television, newspapers etc. as the effective means for information communication. But these one-way-message or information to a large number of physically separated person through these channels cannot be the effective means for gathering of wealth of information. And these channels cannot be used for retrospective search of information to fulfill the thrust of knowledge. To highlight the real situation of indigenous knowledge before the intellectual circle of the world, to preserve the scholarly works of our ancestors in the form of cultural heritage and to fulfill the thrust of knowledge of all categories of experts and general public for further advancement of their knowledge, library and information services at different levels and subjects are very essential in the present world.

The advantages of library and information service sector are not well known to all. The educational elite who constitute a thin layer of the total population have received some advantages from this sector. Still they are also not fully satisfied with the present situation of library and information services in totality.

The large masses of illiterate population living in ignorance and poverty would not demand for library and information services for their educational advancement. As and when the literacy rate will grow, this sector will also be demanded by them for current and retrospective information search. Recently restored democracy in Nepal has yet to be socialised. This can be achieved through universalisation of education and free flow of information to all. Both the objectives will be possible to meet by this sector if it is properly planned and implemented.

Proper Place

Hence, government should recognise this profession in the society by the provision of acts, rules and regulations. This subject should get proper place in information and communication policy. And it should be incorporated in the Right to Information Bill 2000.