Judicial Council
New Initiatives Hold Promise

By Mukti Rijal

THE judicial council is showing some good signs that it is set to act now. Series of activities the Council is carrying out to its credit are evident of its newfound zeal and enthusiasm. The constitutional provision relating to judicial council is new and carefully crafted to see that the body evaluate the judges and put judicial governance on the right track. In a way, it is a kind of judicial ombudsman though its mandates are much more wide and significant.

Article 93 of the constitution enunciates the function of the judicial council as to make recommendation and give advice concerning the appointment, transfer and disciplinary action against, and dismissal of judges. Moreover, the council provides advice and acts accordingly to help strengthen judicial administration and make it more efficient and effective. However, it failed to gather speed in its activities for the last few years. The chief architect of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 who gave flesh and blood to the key constitutional provisions and former chief justice Biswonath Upadhyaya expressed his resentment over the activities of the Council. In an article published in the Essays on the Constitutional Law published by Nepal Law Society (1999) he said that the intent with which the Council was conceived and embodied in the Constitution has not been served. The body is beset with several power centres created within. Mr Upadhyaya told that there prevailed no transparency in the way it takes decision.

If the current activities of the Council are to be judged it appears that, it is shedding its tardiness. Kashi Raj Dahal, the incumbent secretary of the Council has given new push and dynamism to its functions. The Council is working in different fronts and seems keen to reconstruct its face and image. It is not only building systematic information and records but also extending its sphere of activities to competence development of judges. A series of interactions and orientation forums organized under the auspices of the Council are the testimony of it. The Council secretariat has organized an interaction on the constraints and challenges of the Supreme Court a few months ago in which
important conclusions have been adopted. One of the conclusions states " Following the restoration of the multiparty democracy in 1990, the load of the Supreme Court has increased particularly due to the fact the cases demanding legal and constitutional interpretation are taken to the court in large number. It has been felt necessary to create constitutional bench to hear cases of the legal and constitutional importance ".

One of the conclusions adopted in the interaction suggests, "The Constitution intends to provide social, economic and political justice to the people. The judiciary should orient itself to uphold the spirit of the constitution and contribute in the best possible manner to reach social, political and economic justice to the people." The meeting also emphasized to lend impetus to alternative dispute resolution mechanism in lessening burden of the court resulted from the ever-increasing caseload.

Another initiative taken by the Judicial Council of the same kind has been the workshop organized with a view to capacity building of the judges of the appellate courts. The conclusions derived from the workshop are very important especially in quickening justice-dispensing process in the country. The measures recommended are the need to adopt process of summary trial, discouraging unnecessary adjournments of the case hearing and amendments in the existing provisions relating locus standi. The workshop stressed several effective measures in simplifying procedures relating to enforcement of civic rights through writ jurisdictions of the appellate courts. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Keshav Prasad Upadhyaya presented a paper on the theme titled judicial discipline He echorted the judges to maintain restraint and not allow extrajudicial influences to destroy the fabric of justice. Senior judges of the Supreme Court Laxman Prasad Aryal, Kedar Nath Upadhyaya and Krishna Jung Rayamajhi had partaken of the workshop as resource persons.

Similarly, the judicial council organized training workshops for district court judges in different regions to update them on the substantive and procedural aspects of the justice delivery. These judicial human resource development initiatives have for the first time created a new environment to learn and develop oneself through interaction and discussion among members of the judicial fraternity.

The Judicial Council took lead in organizing these events in accordance with the provision of the Judicial council rules that enlarges the role of the body not only to discipline the justices but also to implement measures in their competence building. The activities of the Council have dawned new hopes in strengthening judicial governance, as it is the role of judicial institutions to defend the rights of the people and deliver justice to the needy.

A Dark Day In Lukla

By Prakash Dahal

THE torrential rain caged in the Civil Aviation filmmakers in Buddha lodge, barely fifteen yards away from Lukla’s asphalt airstrip running down the hill. The temperature plummeting to an unexpected six-degree Celsius in July took every one of us by surprise. Local Sherpas could be sighted heavily dressed with boots pulled up to their knees in that foggy, damp, dark and drizzly morning.

Tsering and his mother Aang Chokpa were seen garbed in warm clothes the day before, peeling off potatoes in their Khumbu resort for afternoon snacks. The climate was temperate interspersed with a little shower and the Himalayan mild wind blowing down gently. Wandering in T-shirt and jeans was okay in capricious Lukla until the locals raised eyebrows scaring us.

Aang Chokpa moving tray around with cups of tea and a goblet filled with home brewed Sherpa style millet wine in the Khumbu resort, casts a questioning look at us while serving tea for Niranjan Jung Thapa, the film maker, and the millet wine for myself. Her look belied warnings for we two- the scantily dressed frail humans. The snow-smitten hills dotted with thin icy layers in a little distance was already busy playing hide and seek with the mist arising from Bhotekoshi. The jovial lady in her late 50s presumably found our dress-up anachronistic, however, she uttered no words in disapproval perhaps to avoid looking indecent. But, her eyes delivered an ominous threat.

Tsering Sherpa, her son, an ever-grinning lad, alarmed us that Lukla’s severe cold might catch us and the cold there would be terrible. He was right perhaps, or at least those high hill Sherpas were surely not the ones among the irrational humans to wrap themselves under the thick layers of clothes.

As we were there for an overnight stay and take visual of the Lukla airstrip for CAAN, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, the only way to procure warm clothes was to shop in the Thursday bazaar where the Tibetans descended down with Khasa made fur coats and woolen pullovers. But, that was still 24 hours away. And, the kaleidoscopic Lukla was not prepared to give us that grace period. The only option left was to rush to the Buddha lodge and hide oneself under the blanket and lie down.

Aang Chokpa was maintaining the perfect Sherpa hospitality- the millet wine with peeled off potatoes and chips. No sooner the tiny clay pot for sipping was emptied than she poured in from the goblet. And it went on for another couple of hours.

The filming of the airport was done immediately after we boarded off the Yeti plane. In an hour or so, Nature changed its colour from bewitching green to dreadfully dark. The only thing that perpetually occupied the mind was whether or not the Yeti twin-otter would fly in and then fly us out of Lukla the next day. Aang and Tsering, the mother and the son, the Khumbu resort owner, didn’t sound too optimistic though Tsering too, was to fly out with us. They, however, didn’t let our optimism die down when they said, " If it rains heavily today, chances are there that the weather will come friendly next day."

As we were fraternizing with Aang and Tsering over the sip of wine, Michael Cho and Jessica Tan, the two young American medical students of Chinese origin popped in and sat around taking off their anorak. They told that they were medical students from Stanford University who came to Nepal to work as an intern in Kanti Children’s Hospital under what they called Nepal Pediatric Clinical Internship. And, as they had a week-long time to idle away, they made the trip to Namche. Now, they were stuck in Lukla for two days in want of planes to fly them out.

The tipsy mind under millet wine influence was thinking over ways to take advantage of the situation. And, it clicked to the mind to interview and film all the tourists stuck in Lukla. Tsering, whose resort every one was in, appreciated the idea of capturing both the tourists and his resort in the camera. He agreed to go around and flush out the tourists hiding in different lodge and resorts for the filming purposes.

The Sherpa lad, the resort owner, also an employee of Yeti, seemed quite popular in the village. In couple of minutes, Tsering showed up grinning, showing stump of teeth, with herd of tourists. Karen Detlefsen, Professor of Philosophy at University of Pennsylvania, and Kuk Chor Tan another professor from Toronto University followed him. Then, came Tony Smart, the American Finance Planner, Maureen Torrence, Health Care personnel, Raul Sicardi, the Venezuelan Material Engineer and Vicki Mcpadden, the American consultant.

All but one had flown to Lukla and walked up to the base camp. Raul Sicardi, the Venezuelan, had reached Lukla on foot from Jiri and then climbed up to Namche. With the camera on, every one at a time spoke about their Himalayan adeventure trekking in that part of Nepal and their impressions about the country. Though Lukla’s weather stranded them there, one could see flashes of ecstasy running across their faces when they recalled the trekking moments to Kalapatthar and beyond.

The interview session took an hour or so. The rain had stopped but the fog rose to darken the atmosphere. The wooden goblet with patches of copper plate on it was empty by now. We packed up our cameras, bid good-bye to Aang and Tsering, and made our way towards Buddha lodge.

The nubile, down there in the Buddha lodge counter, was washing the floor with her face looking downward. The girl from Jumla, flown to Lukla to see her aunt running Buddha lodge, looked as fresh and juicy as succulent apples of the hills. Even Nature would have difficulty deciding whom she made the most beautiful, the Jumleli lass or the Lukla hills?

Or perhaps, beauty lies in beholders’ eye, as the English poet William Wordsworth said.

My Road Worse Than ‘By-Road’

By Krishna Sharma

Taxi gudaundai/By-road ko batoma dhulo udaundai

I STILL remember those childhood days when we used to run after the vehicles that cantered belching smoke and forming the storm of dust on the graveled road that went adjacent to my home. It was not to hitch the vehicles or ride on them but we ran simply to enjoy ourselves shouting loudly and merrily. Unaware of any bad effects of dust and smoke, we used to play hide-and-seek and other games in the cloud of dust and smoke that the vehicles left behind. Whenever any vehicular means would pass through the narrow dusty boulevard all the children in the village, including myself would come out of homes and run after the running-machines.

Unlike children brought up in the towns or cities, many young ones in the villages still enjoy running after the vehicles if there are any graveled dusty roads.

Although the song is still popular, it was then that the above mentioned song was on the tongue of almost every Nepalese. The song was popular because black-topped roads were a rare sight in the Himalayan Kingdom. The song best expressed the then reality — the thrilling and adventurous experience of driving through the graveled roads that run through hills and plains.

But along with the passage of time the Nepalese roads gradually saw a facelift. Some of the Highways turned out to be silky and smooth as a moth’s nose. However, gravel-roads are still there in many far away districts in the hills and Himalayas waiting to be pitched.

Most of my road experiences are not as silky and smooth as the present day black-topped ones that link different parts of the Kingdom. Although I lived a pretty good number of my years walking or riding through graveled roads covered with dust it is the pitched ones which are giving me a very new and unexpected kind of experience. After almost two decades of such dusty but adventurous experience, no sooner have I started walking and riding on the fine pitched (?) roads in the capital city than I feel I have been revisiting my past dusty days.

Anyone willing to drive through the dusty roads and have a new experience does not have to bother about going for a long drive through Tribhuvan Highway, commonly known as ‘by-road’, now. Driving in Kathmandu is enough. The Kathmandu roads have now completely replaced the dusty drive through Naubise to Hetauda.

New generation, in this regard, must be lucky. They do not have to bother about taking out a week to get the ‘by-road’ experience, as described in the song. The present day dusty, bumpy and narrow Kathmandu Valley roads are very much similar to the by-road.

But despite the fact that the road I rode in the past and the ones we are riding these days are both dusty and leave a storm of dust, there are a number of differences. The sight of children running after the vehicles plying on Kathmandu roads is not even a rare sight. Again, opposite to what the song says there is nobody who seems to be interested in driving through the dusty roads here.

If you travel across Kathmandu and drop home in the evening there are every chances that your family may not recognize you. It is the ever-increasing dust and smoke that makes you such a different personality.

While walking or riding through the Kathmandu roads which are full of dust, smoke, potholes and unending line of vehicles one feels as if he is having a journey to abyss.