Supreme Court issues show cause order in case concerning Regulation of Foreign Employment Agents
Kathmandu, 22 February (2018) - The Supreme Court of Nepal on Thursday issued a show-cause order in the name of the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) and other ministries concerned including Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) and Foreign Employment Promotion Board regarding the regulation of Agents deployed by the licensee organizations (Manpower Companies) and decentralization of complaint hearing and investigating authority of DoFE at the local level to bring the unscrupulous agents under the custody of law.
A single bench of Rt. Hon'ble Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli issued the notice seeking reason behind the lack of proper policy to regulate the agents at local and community level, the ignorance of jurisdiction of local police to file the complaints against the agents, the impunity enjoyed by the agents despite their false promises and fraudulent activities, the centralized judicial structure of DoFE jeopardizing the access to justice of victims and legality of unregistered agents among others.
On February 20, Law and Policy Forum for Social Justice (LAPSOJ) registered a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the apex court to provide jurisdiction to the local police by annexing the foreign employment related cases in the Annex 1 of the State Cases Act, decentralize or delegate the power of the Department to receive the complaints and investigate the cases against the agents by the agency like district Labour Offices and to establish a mandatory mechanism of submitting the appointment letters of all registered agents along with their personal details and progress report of the works of the individual agents appointed by the said manpower companies.
Advocates Hari Phuyal, Barun Ghimire and Anurag Devkota presented arguments before the Supreme Court in today’s preliminary hearing.
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