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Appointment of Chief Justice
By KTM Metro Reporter
On Sunday, October 07, 2007, Interim Head of State and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala administered the oath of office to newly appointed Chief Justice Kedar Prasad Giri at the state hall in Singhadurbar, Kathmandu.
Interim Head of State and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala appointed Kedar Prasad Giri as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal even though the Interim Legislature did not clear him of charges filed by the people. The CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist and other small left parties opposed the appointment of Mr. Giri to the Chief Justice during the legislative hearing on September 12.
After the sworn-in ceremony, Chief Justice Giri talked to the journalists at the press conference at his secretariat at the Supreme Court, and revealed his seven-point plan to make the judiciary effective and free from corruption. In response to the reporters’ query about the widespread media criticism of the Special Court set up for taking the corruption cases filed by the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority, Chief Justice Giri said that he would review the jurisdiction of the Special Court and the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority
Ever since former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal, Dilip Kumar Poudel welcomed the coup d’etat staged by the then-King Gyanendra on February 01, 2005; the Nepalese media have been raising the question of independence of judiciary in Nepal. Former Chief Justice failed to resign from the position of the Chief Justice on the moral ground even after the success of the People’s Movement in April 2006 for dumping the kingship. Rather, he met with former ministers such as Kamal Thapa, Khum Bahadur Khadka, and Rabindranath Sharma charged by the Commission on Investigation into Abuse of Authority in the Special Court. Then, the Special Court acquitted them on the technical ground just before the legislature promulgated an interim constitution on January 15, 2007. The former ministers would be barred from being the legislators of the Interim Legislature if their corruption cases remained pending at the Special Court.
