CCPR/C/112/D/2018/2010 court martial, he could not be tried again in civilian courts because of the principle of double jeopardy. The author argues that the difficulties in bringing prosecutions because of obstruction by the Nepal Army, even when arrest warrants have been issued, follows a pattern shown in other cases. Furthermore, there are strong indications that political will to follow through on prosecutions is lacking. 13 5.7 The military investigations and court martial do not show that the State party has been fulfilling its obligations to investigate and prosecute the violation and to provide a domestic remedy. As a matter of principle, a military tribunal is an entirely inappropriate forum for investigating and trying any member of the military suspected of involvement in the ill-treatment and killing of a civilian. The jurisdiction of military courts should be limited to offences of a strictly internal, military nature committed by military personnel, which largely means internal disciplinary measures. Their jurisdiction should be set aside in favour of the jurisdiction of the civilian courts to conduct inquiries into serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture, and to prosecute and try persons accused of such crimes. 14 The author argues that investigation and prosecution of serious human rights abuses by a military tribunal in and of itself violates the victim’s right to an effective remedy under the Covenant. Not only is there a lack of independence of the investigator and decision maker, and incentives for the violation to be minimized or covered up, but the victim and/or his or her family members are not involved in the proceedings. 5.8 The author argues in great detail that the court martial held to examine the “incident” in Pokhari Chauri on 12 to 13 February 2004 fell short of the requirements that an investigation must meet to satisfy the obligation under the Covenant to enable the provision of an effective remedy. Those failings include the facts that: (a) the court martial was patently not impartial or independent, because it was made up of members of the military within the same hierarchical and disciplinary structure as those accused; (b) the court martial was not competent or qualified to investigate or try allegations of serious violations of human rights; (c) the families of the victims, including the author, were not involved in the proceedings and were not even aware of their existence until nearly six years later; and (d) the proceedings were not transparent. Not only was the decision of the court martial not released; to the knowledge of the author’s legal representatives, the many documents listed in the court martial decision have not been provided to the Kavre DPO. The holding of a military tribunal to investigate those violations further breached the author’s rights under articles 6 and 7, read in conjunction with article 2, paragraph 3 of the Covenant. It certainly does not amount to a remedy for the violations under the Covenant and the fact that a court martial has been held does not make his claim inadmissible. 5.9 With regard to the State party’s contention that domestic remedies have not been exhausted, the author reiterates his initial position that the application of remedies has been unreasonably prolonged, and that those remedies are not effective in practice. In the nearly eighteen months after the Supreme Court’s mandamus order was issued, very little was done. To his knowledge, the police had not interviewed any of the members of the army patrol named in the FIR. The fact that the police took some first concrete steps, notably to record depositions of two witnesses on 23 April 2010 and to visit the crime scene on 21 January 2011, in relation to the complaint which was made to the police more than seven 13 14 10 The author refers to a statement made on 20 May 2011 by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs that “cases of a political nature and related to the conflict time should be quashed”. Available from www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=31508. The author refers to principle 29 of the updated Set of Principles.