training and development will be firmly based on fair policies
and the principle of equality in treatment.
While being impartial, the NHRC will remain sensitive
to the issue of justice to the victims.
C.
Accessibility
The Commission will keep access to its office open
to any individual and organization and welcome them
on official business. In order to increase access to
the people, the Commission will continue to mobilize
its efforts to open regional offices and/or establish
other alternative arrangements to provide effective
nationwide access to the services of the Commission.
Likewise, the Commission will periodically visit
various parts of the country, especially the remote
areas, prisons and detention centres, and will remain
open to any invitation to meet and discuss human
rights issues in any part of the country. The
Commission will improvise its office set up to enhance
its accessibility to people with disabilities, including
the provision of language interpreters and sign
language interpreters. In addition, the Commission
will ensure that the visitors will have free access to
the Commission, though they will have to disclose
their identity in confidence to the staff of the
Commission for internal purposes.
Language being another barrier, the Commission will
prepare its annual reports and other major
publications available in two major languages of
Nepal – based on current national census — starting
in 2004 with one more language in addition to Nepali.
Key human rights promotional materials will be
published in different languages to reach the diverse
ethnic and linguistic groups that exist in Nepal. It
will accept complaints in all national languages, starting
with three major languages in the year 2004, besides
Nepali, and will gradually strive for inclusion of other
key languages based on need. Its field offices will
receive complaints in the major languages spoken
in the region. For effectively dealing with
different languages, it will design staff policy to
attract people from different ethnic/language
groups, and gradually make the necessary changes
in the documents and forms.
A dedicated hotline and a mobile phone for reporting
serious kinds of human right violations during off
hours, weekends or holidays requiring immediate
action of the Commission will be established. In
addition, the Commission will make arrangements
to open the Complaints Office during the
weekends and public holidays and the office
responsible will have the authority to act promptly
on serious cases.
A small committee comprising one of the Members
and a few staff from different ethnic backgrounds
will monitor the progress on enhancing accessibility
to the Commission. It will submit a half-yearly
report to the Commission with specific
recommendations in the areas needing
improvements, if any.
D.
Accountability
The Commission takes full responsibility for proper
management and expenditure of funds received from His
Majesty’s Government as well as from other sources. To
ensure that maximum resources are invested for program
activities, the Commission will always keep the program
support or administrative costs at the lowest level possible.
To ensure that the financial management is of the highest
standard, the Commission will appoint an independent,
competent and reputed audit firm to conduct internal audit
of the expenditure of NHRC on a periodic basis. The
auditors will submit their final report directly to the
Commission. The Commission will carefully review the
report and take necessary action to remedy the issues, if
any. The Commission’s audited financial statement, which
is an inseparable part of its annual report, will be posted
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