5.3 Challenges and Future Prospects of Restorative Justice in Nepal

Challenges: 1. Legal fit: the formal system's offence categories — compoundable (melmilap-able) versus non-compoundable — define RJ's formal space; the compoundable list is RJ's statutory home, and it is narrow. 2. Practice gap: mediation is civil practice's habit (the Mediation Act 2068 studied in ADR, LAW5604); criminal justice actors are untrained in victim-offender dialogue. 3. Power asymmetry: in domestic violence and trafficking cases, "reconciliation" can become pressure on the weaker party — the secondary victimization trap. 4. Resources: no trained facilitators, no referral protocols, no victim-support infrastructure at scale. 5. The transitional justice deadlock: the TRC-era reparation-and-reconciliation debate — victim consent and the serious-violations line contested (the prescribed cases' centre). 6. Culture's double edge: community practices (kacheha, bhumi-milmad traditions) carry RJ's spirit but also caste- and gender-hierarchy risks. Future prospects: 1. Statutory pilots: RJ clauses in the procedural framework's reform; police- and court-annexed mediation for defined offence classes. 2. The GBV interface: specialist, consent-centred designs where safely applicable; otherwise robust protection instead. 3. TJ completion: the conflict-era reparation and truth process as RJ's national test — victim consent as the non-negotiable. 4. Training and standards: facilitator certification, safeguard protocols, and monitoring — RJ's professionalization. 5. The constitutional home: Article 21's rehabilitation and compensation read with Article 51's justice policies — the doctrinal seed-bed for a victim justice code.