By Manjima Dhakal

Kathmandu, Sept. 14: Almost five months after the formation of a committee to recommend officials for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission for Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP), the committee is set to recommend the names of the office bearers in the two commissions in a week.
"The committee has almost finalised the list of the office bearers. So, we will publish the recommended names by next Friday,” Sharmila Karki, spokesperson of the recommendation committee, said.
According to her, the committee has called its meeting for coming Monday, and the list of the recommended names could also be made public on Monday.
The government makes the recommended names public and gives a five-day deadline to file complaints against the recommended persons, she added. And the cabinet appoints the suitable candidates from the lists, Karki added. As informed by Karki, there is a high possibility the two commissions would get officials prior to Dashain.
However, the conflict victims are not assured of getting justice even from the newly appointed officials. They blamed that the government was to appoint officials under political quotas which was being done not to make commissions independent and not to make them conflict victim-friendly.
Bhagiram Chaudhary, chairperson of the Conflict Victim Common Platform, said that political parties have been seeking to appoint such officials who can protect the interests of political leaders.
The government has been delaying officials’ appointment as they are not getting appropriate candidates who are acceptable for all, Chaudhary said. He blamed that major parties had no concerns about the justice for victims.
Sharmila Tripathi, a victim leader, expressed her anger over the delay in appointing officials. “For how long we should wait for justice. The government has been deaf to our problems and concerns. Justice delayed is justice denied”.
Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary, however said that though the process was quite delayed, the government was committed to settling the conflict-era issues without abridging the national and international human rights standards.
He further said the government was well aware of the Supreme Court’s verdict regarding the transitional justice, the government’s commitment made at the international forums and at the international law meetings.
The government had formed two transitional justice mechanisms, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP). During their four-year terms, both the commissions made little headway in ensuring justice and post-conflict reconciliation, except for collecting the cases of disappearances and rights violation.
Both the commissions were mandated to take initiative of truth-telling, investigate into the cases registered with them, study the nature and pattern of human rights abuse, identify individuals involved in grave rights violation, sexual violence and rape of women and girls, and recommend for the reparations to the victims and the institutional reforms of transitional justice system.