Supreme Court issues final verdict in cases concerning deaths of Nepali migrant workers

Kathmandu, 16 November (2017) - The Supreme Court of Nepal on Thursday has issued a directive order in the name of the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) and other ministries concerned including Department of Foreign Employment and Foreign Employment Promotion Board regarding the alarming death of Nepali Migrant Workers abroad and to establish an appropriate mechanism to address the issue.

The bench of Justices Purushottam Bhandari and Bam Kumar Shrestha issued the directive order. The major issues addressed in the case are related to the lack of proper policy to repatriate the dead body irrespective of legal status, necessary arrangements in the international airport for transfer of dead body to the family, postmortem requirement of the dead body with government bearing the necessary cost as part of taking steps towards ratification of Migrant workers convention.

Law and Policy Forum for Social Justice (LAPSOJ) and Pourakhi-Nepal had registered a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the apex court on December 27, 2016. The show cause notice on the case was issued by the court on 7 March, 2017 and the case was placed under priority hearing.

Today during the main hearing Advocates Hari Phuyal, Milan Rai, Kedar Dahal, Barun Ghimire and Anurag Devkota argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the applicant organisations.

The case can be pivotal in identifying causes behind the increasing number of death of migrant workers and reforming migration governance in relation to medical checkup and orientation training. The PIL is one among the cases registered by LAPSOJ regarding migrant workers' issues.