Nepal's parliament approved Wednesday long-delayed amendments to the transitional justice act aimed at addressing war crimes committed during the country's Maoist insurgency, but victims said some problematic provisions remain.
Both security forces and former rebels have been accused of carrying out torture, killings, rapes and forced disappearances during Nepal's decade-long civil war, which ended in 2006 with more than 16,000 people dead and around a thousand missing.
"We have brought this document forward through a unanimous agreement," Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli told parliament, saying that the changes were "victim-centric".
The amendment bill was passed with the support of a majority of lawmakers, parliamentary speaker Dev Raj Ghimire said.
The peace deal brought the Maoist rebels into mainstream politics, ended a 240-year-old Hindu monarchy, transformed Nepal into a secular federal republic and integrated former rebels into the national army.
But authorities have been criticised for failing to adequately probe war crimes and instead create provisions for amnesty, with two commissions set up for that purpose in 2015 failing to resolve a single case between them despite over 60,000 complaints.
"We have to implement this historic and sensitive work with consensus and without any favour or bias," Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a former rebel leader and leader of the opposition, told the parliament.
-'Lost hope' -
The latest amendment, which were agreed through a cross-party taskforce earlier this month, is intended to help Nepal heal some of the wounds left by the 10-year civil war.
But victims and activists say that while that movement in the long-stalled process is positive, some problematic provisions remain including the definition and classification of human rights violations.
"There have been improvements... but such classifications leave room for impunity and for perpetrators to evade justice," Mandira Sharma of International Commission of Jurists told AFP.
Critics say the amendments risk shielding those responsible for some serious crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, and denying some victims access to reparations.
Suman Adhikari, whose father was killed by Maoist rebels in 2002, told AFP that while most amendments are positive, many victims have lost hope for "meaningful justice" after waiting for 18 years.
"They say it will be a victim-centric process, but we will see how the implementation moves forward," he said.
"If there is sincerity to give victims justice, then why have the current commissions not been able to do anything all these years?" he asked.
Rights group Accountability Watch Committee issued a statement last week urging the government to revise problematic issues in the bill before endorsement.
That included a provision mandating government attorneys to tackle cases by drastically reducing sentences to get convictions.
Many former Maoist rebels and state officials have entered in government ranks over the years.
Just two convictions related to crimes committed during the civil war crimes have been handed down in civilian courts.
One was linked to the murder of a teenage girl. The other was related to the killing of a journalist.