KATHMANDU, Jan 17: The Society of Government Attorneys and the trade unions at the Office of the Attorney General have expressed serious disappointment over the Judicial Council's recommendations for the appointment of 80 judges at the seven high courts and their extended benches.
The government attorneys have also threatened to start protests from Sunday if the council does not review its recommendations. They have threatened that they could even stop attending the benches as their protests peak.
The government attorneys claimed that the recommendations ignored the service put in by government attorneys. Only a single individual was recommended from among the government attorneys for a high court judgeship, out of the 80 names recommended.
"The Judicial Council has made light of the professional integrity of government attorneys in its recent recommendations," states a press release issued by the Society of Government Attorneys on Monday.
Earlier, Nepal Bar Association (NBA), the umbrella organization of lawyers across the country, had also expressed serious dissatisfaction over the recommendations and asked the council to review its decision. Issuing a press release Friday, NBA General Secretary Khamma Bahadur Khati argued that the recommendations were made in the absence of two of the council members and therefore did not fulfill the constitutional provisions and the provisions of the Judicial Council Act.
The Judicial Council at midnight Thursday recommended the 80 judges but the decision drew controversy as one of the council members boycotted the meeting and another was absent.
Although seniormost Justice Baidyanath Upadhyaya was absent from the meeting and council member Ram Prasad Sitaula, the representative of Nepal Bar Association, boycotted it, Chief Justice Sushila Karki, Minister for Law and Justice Ajaya Shankar Nayak and Judicial Council member Padam Baidik, who was appointed by the prime minister, decided to recommend 37 judges at district courts, 27 advocates and 16 joint-secretaries and special class officers of the legal, judicial and government attorneys services as judges of the high courts.
Meanwhile, the Madhes-based parties have also expressed dissatisfaction over the recommendations made by the council, arguing that the principle of proportionate representation and inclusion had not been followed.
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