Freedom Forum has commented on the draft bill of the Criminal Code from the angle of freedom of expression, and disseminated a report on it to almost 100 parliamentarians of the Development Committee under the Legislative Parliament.
The report is prepared being based on prudence of the proposed criminal code with its affiliation to international and constitutional standards. The provisions in the proposed bill which seem to give ground for vague interpretation, inconsistency with the international and constitutional standards need to be amended. Taking it into account, the report is disseminated to lawmakers. Even a separate meeting would to be held with the parliamentarians regarding the report to exert pressure on them to think of change at the earliest. On 2 November 2014, Nepal’s Ministry of Law, Justice, Constituent Assembly and Parliamentary Affairs had tabled five bills, including the bill on the Criminal Code at the Legislative-Parliament. The Government of Nepal’s latest initiative to update its criminal laws and codify new crimes signals renewed political will to address this problem and is an improvement on previous draft bills. However, the current draft still falls short of meeting Nepal’s international human rights obligation to criminalize human rights violations and abuses that amount to crimes under international law. For More Information Freedom Forum Thapathali, Kathmandu 4102030, 4102022 info@freedomforum.org.np www.freedomforum.org.np www.nepalpressfreedom.org.np
