President Ramchandra Paudel has authenticated the Commission of Investigation on the Enforced Disappeared Persons and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act (third amendment) Bill, 2024.

Issuing a press statement on Thursday, Shailaja Regmi Bhattarai, Spokesperson for the Office of the President, informed that the President authenticated the bill as per Article 113 (2) of the Constitution of Nepal.

The authentication of the much-talked-about Bill related to Nepal’s peace process is expected to resolve the cases of conflict period by finding out the truth.

Earlier this month, both the houses of the Federal Parliament endorsed the Bill.The House of Representatives passed the Bill with a majority on August 15 and the National Assembly endorsed it on August 22.

It took almost 18 years for the political parties to agree to investigate the cases of the conflict period and resolve them. The process of transitional justice started right after the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) was signed between the then CPN-Maoist and the government on November 21, 2006.

After the agreement, the country entered the peace process but the cases of heinous crimes committed during the armed conflict from 1996 to 2006 have not been resolved as the stakeholders failed to reach a consensus.

The CPA provisioned the formation of a commission within one year to investigate the human rights violations that occurred during the conflict and that the situation of the enforced disappeared persons would be made public within six months. In the Interim Constitution, it was mentioned that the commission would be formed within six months.

Eight years after the CPA signing, although two commissions were formed on the political divide, their terms expired in four years without achieving anything. The government again appointed office bearers with new political divisions. The second commission could not work either. The past commissions could not do anything other than collect complaints.

Only on August 1, a breakthrough was made after a taskforce coordinated by Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak from Nepali Congress with Deputy General Secretary Janardan Sharma from CPN-Maoist and Chief Whip Mahesh Kumar Bartaula from CPN-UML as members reached a consensus to move ahead by resolving disputed issues.