Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) Chairman Rajendra Lingden said on Sunday that impeaching one or two judges will not bring reform to Nepal's judiciary, arguing that the courts need broad, structural change rather than the removal of individual officeholders. Speaking to Ratopati, Lingden said the judiciary requires wide-ranging reform, including a reconsideration of judicial appointments and the restructuring of the institution itself. His remarks come at a politically charged moment, as the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has decided to move a parliamentary process to remove judges, pushing the question of judicial accountability to the centre of national debate.

The RPP chairman's comments amount to a clear position in an emerging argument over how Nepal should address problems in its courts. While the RSP has chosen the path of parliamentary action against judges, Lingden is arguing that such a step, however significant, would leave the underlying issues untouched.

"Impeaching one or two judges will not improve the judiciary"

Lingden's central message, as reported by Ratopati, was that targeted impeachment is not the answer to the judiciary's problems. In his telling, removing a judge or two from office would not improve the judiciary as a whole, because the difficulties facing the courts are not confined to individual officeholders.

Instead, he argued for a comprehensive approach. According to Lingden, meaningful reform of the judiciary would need to include:

  • A reconsideration of how judges are appointed to the bench
  • The restructuring of the judicial system itself
  • Broad and wide-ranging change across the courts, rather than action against one or two individuals

Taken together, these points frame the RPP chairman's position as institutional rather than personal. In his view, the debate should not be about whether a particular judge stays or goes, but about whether the system that produces, empowers and oversees judges is fit for purpose. Reform, in this reading, begins with appointments and structure, not with individual removals.

The RSP move that has put judges in the spotlight

Lingden's remarks did not come in a vacuum. They were made as the Rastriya Swatantra Party decided to push a parliamentary process to remove judges, a decision that has turned the judiciary into a central topic of political discussion. Rajdhani Daily is among the outlets that have reported on Lingden's intervention as that debate gathers pace.

The RSP's decision to pursue a parliamentary process represents one of the most serious steps a political party can propose against the judiciary, and it places the issue directly before Parliament. Lingden's intervention, timed to that decision, signals that his party will engage with the question of judicial reform but does not accept that the RSP's chosen mechanism is sufficient. Rather than focusing on the fate of individual judges, the RPP chairman is steering the conversation toward the design of the judiciary as an institution.

Appointments and restructuring: the reform Lingden wants

At the heart of Lingden's argument are two specific areas of reform. The first is appointments. By calling for a reconsideration of appointments, he is pointing to the process by which people become judges, suggesting that any serious review of the judiciary must look at who reaches the bench and how they get there. The second is restructuring, a term that points to the organisation of the courts themselves.

Neither proposal is a small undertaking. Reconsidering appointments and restructuring the judiciary would amount to a re-examination of the institution's foundations, touching how judges are selected and how the court system is arranged. But that, in Lingden's view, is the scale of change required. Impeaching a judge or two, he told Ratopati, will not deliver that kind of transformation.

His emphasis on breadth is also notable. He did not limit his remarks to a single arm of the judiciary or a single category of appointment. Instead, he spoke of the need for change across the courts, framing the problem as systemic and the solution as correspondingly wide-ranging.

A debate that goes beyond individual judges

The emerging debate sets two approaches against each other. On one side stands the RSP's decision to move a parliamentary process to remove judges. On the other is Lingden's argument that no such individual action, however many judges it targets, can substitute for broad reform of the judiciary. Both positions reflect concern about the state of the courts, but they point toward very different remedies.

For the RPP chairman, the choice facing the country is between action against individuals and substantive change to an institution. His remarks suggest that as the parliamentary process proposed by the RSP moves forward, the RPP intends to insist that the discussion also address appointments, structure and the judiciary as a whole. Whether that broader agenda gains traction in Parliament remains to be seen, but Lingden has made clear where he believes the real work of judicial reform lies.