National 2 (Spotlight Weekly)

Rule of Law or Terror?

By mysteriously firing off letters to politicians and senior officials, the anti-graft watchdog has sparked a new debate over abuse of authority

By KESHAB POUDEL

As soon as Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala challenges the Commission of Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) summons at the apex court, a new round of legal and constitutional battle will end up compounding the current political struggle launched by the alliance of five mainstream parties.

The recent actions by top antigraft body smacks of pick-and-choose modus operandi rather than following legal couse

As the country is under the King's appointed government and another unaccountable body, CIAA, is exercising sweeping arbitrary authority summoning senior politicians and top retired and existing government officials, individual freedom has faced uncertainty for the first time in the last 13 years of multiparty democracy.

Summoning politicians and officials through a pick-and-choose modus operandi, citing the secret report of the High Level Property Probe Commission, the CIAA has shown it can put anyone in prison at any time. As long as the CIAA does not follow norms and acts, its actions will always fall under controversy. On the property probe commission report, the CIAA has summoned people without making the full report public.

If the CIAA continues to exercise its arbitrary power without transparency and accountability, it will neither control corruption nor punish the corrupt. Instead it will just finish its utility as its predecessor institution like Commission of Investigation and Prevention of Abuse of Authority.

Without citing any legal provision, the CIAA summoned 37 politicians, including former prime minister Koirala, with a single sentence asking them to appear before the panel "to clarify certain matters" regarding the sources of property based on the report of property probe commission. Summoning individuals on the basis of a report that has not been made public is arbitrary. Although some persons have already appeared before the CIAA, Koirala has decided to go for a legal battle against the summons.

"The Commission of Investigation of Abuse of Authority has asked me to appear before its office 'to clarify certain matters' regarding the sources of my property based on the report of property probe commission, but the said notice did not cite the authority upon which it was based. There cannot be any other reason except the political one behind the hurried actions of the commission without waiting for the publication of the report of property probe commission," Koirala said in a statement. "The actions of the CIAA have clearly shown how such institutions created to protect the interest of the citizens could be abused as political weapons by any authoritarian regime."

Supreme Court : Guardian of freedom

Although many people expressed fears over the possibility of abuse of sweeping arbitrary authority granted to such agencies when the bills was tabled in parliament, what was ignored then has now been turned against them as a political weapon.

During the Panchayat period, the commission was widely misused to destroy political rivals. Former prime minister Tulsi Giri, former ministers Dr. Harka Gurung, Dr. Bhekh Bahadur Thapa and senior civil servants Kul Shekhar Sharma, Dr. Ganesh Bahadur Thapa and other dozens of other officials were put on trial on corruption charges.

Despite the open and transparent political system of today, the CIAA's modus operandi seems to have a hangover from the past. If the CIAA was really committed to control corruption, it would not have summoned the people without a certain legal framework.

If the CIAA does not abide by the rule of law, people would be tempted to defy its orders. In that situation, the country will face more chaos, including the breakdown of law and order. Corruption can be contained only in an open and transparent society where the institutions entrusted with the task do not stray from the core principles of due process.