Rebuilding Nepal’s judiciary means spreading power to the provinces

The aftermath of last September's Gen Z protests has left Nepal's courtrooms in ruins, exposing the judiciary's fundamental fragility and leading to a standstill in the legal system. The crisis is as much structural as it is physical, demanding more than just rebuilding infrastructure to restore the rule of law; it requires radical decentralization of justice.

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The fallout from the Gen Z protests of last September has reduced Nepal’s courtrooms to administrative and architectural ruin, exposing their fundamental fragility.

Fiscal year 2025-26 statistics reveal an unprecedented collapse in judicial output. The national case clearance rate plummeted to 55 percent from 65.69 percent the previous year, leaving over 160,000 cases unresolved. The Supreme Court recorded its worst performance, disposing of only 29.46 percent of its caseload. This failure stems from a system crippled both physically and technologically.

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The national case clearance rate, which stood at 65.69 percent in the previous year, has plummeted to a mere 55 percent.

The physical destruction from the protests is immense, with 23 court premises targeted, ten buildings completely destroyed, and nine partially ruined. The Supreme Court's historic building alone suffered damages worth billions of rupees. Critically, the loss of nearly a million legal files and documents represents an irreparable erasure of legal history, halting thousands of litigations.

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The Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of the law, recorded its lowest performance in history, disposing of only 29.46 percent of its caseload, plummeting 12.54 percentage points from the previous fiscal year.

Technologically, the destruction of central servers caused a nationwide system failure. Even undamaged courts experienced operational freezes due to the loss of central databases, suspending judicial activities for months. This over-reliance on a centralized hub in the capital proved a strategic vulnerability. To prevent future systemic collapse, the judiciary must embrace structural reforms, including elevating High Courts to courts of record to handle routine appeals and alleviate the Supreme Court's overwhelming caseload.

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When the arson attacks consumed these papers, they effectively halted thousands of ongoing litigations, plunging the nation into a state where justice is not only delayed but, for many, entirely extinguished.