The Nepali Judiciary - Supreme Court Of Nepal

facilities provided to summon executioners are nominal and this should be reviewed.
Absence of VDC Secretaries from their respective also provides problem in execution of
summons.
• Justice is not only slow and cumbersome, it is also expensive. The court has failed to earn
public trust and easy access to justice by the general public has not been maintained.
Public cannot experience reform through the reforms being made on the physical aspect of
the courts. It is imperative that reforms should immediately be made from the initial stage of
registration of case to the execution of judgments. Therefore, case management should be
given special priority.
• Stakeholders are equally responsible in slow adjudication of justice. Stakeholders are
equally responsible in decreasing public trust of the judiciary. Reform should be initiated
from minor issues and the manpower of the court should be public friendly.
• Adjournment of cases as a matter of right should be discouraged by law and case flow
should be brought with the control of the courts.
• Public interest issues containing political matters consume considerable amount of time of
the Supreme Court. No fixed standard has been prescribed for issuance of interim orders
and right of priority regarding hearing of case. The practice of scheduling the case for
decision and rescheduling of such case without any valid reasons creates mistrust towards
the judiciary.
• Another issue linked with judicial reform is decentralization of justice. In order to ascertain
peoples’ easy access to justice, the judiciary should vest more power to the lower bodies of
the courts and minor cases should be finalized at the appellate level. Likewise, the District
Courts should be vested with the authority of entertaining habeas-corpus and injunction
petitions and the Appellate Court with the authority of entertaining certiorari petitions. At the
local level, cases should be registered even if such petitions are submitted in the
prescribed format. The service of court paid lawyers should be available from drafting of
plaints to every level of proceedings.
• The Strategic Plan and the areas of reform identified by the Plan have not been made
sufficiently available to the court employees and the general public. Therefore, amongst
other programs, information of the Plan should be disseminated through radio and through
various papers and magazines.
• Court should prioritize case management. It should be court centric and should be under
the control of the court. Information technology should be applied in case management.
Window shopping of bench and postponement of cases on the basis of window shopping
should be discouraged. Likewise, provided, a party causes to consume unnecessary time
of the court then such party should be levied with higher court fee.
• Although conflict has come to an end in the country, there are many districts which are
insecure due to the presence of armed groups. Due to insecurity activities such as
execution of summons, survey and other judicial activities are affected. In many
circumstances, judges have been rendering orders in preliminary hearing from their
residence. Therefore, judiciary should provide sense of security to the courts, judges,
lawyers, employees and parties to the case.
• During the past few years, although the court has been resolving disputes through
mediation, this process has not achieved the success as envisaged. Therefore, reform in
laws and transfer of human resources should be done and this should be considered as a
reliable mode for resolution of disputes
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