PROFILE - Sushila Karki: From Nepal’s first female chief justice to interim premier

• ⁠73-year-old legal luminary to serve as interim premier in wake of deadly protests that ousted KP Sharma Oli’s government
• ⁠Born in eastern Koshi province, Karki is only woman to become chief justice in the Himalayan nation, when she assumed office on July 11, 2016
• Karki will have to steer 30M Himalayan nation out of constitutional crisis toward a fresh election

ISTANBUL

Nepal’s Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki has become the country’s first female leader after being appointed interim prime minister in the wake of deadly protests that ousted the government of KP Sharma Oli.

Karki, who took the oath of office on Friday night, is expected to hold elections in next six months.

The unprecedented move to appoint a chief executive from outside the parliament comes after deadly protests in Nepal forced the government's downfall and demonstrators pushed for new faces to lead the Himalayan nation.

At least 51 were killed and hundreds of others injured since Monday in protests triggered by a ban on social media by the then Oli government.

The protests turned into a wider movement against alleged corruption and nepotism by the political elite, which saw the wrath of the protesters as they attacked their residences, Supreme Court and other public buildings.

The army took control of the country, imposed curfew and facilitated dialogue between all stakeholders, which resulted in Karki being nominated as the interim leader, responsible for holding fresh elections.

The last elections were held in 2022 and Oli had been elected as prime minister for the fourth time last year in July.

Jurist to chief executive

The 73-year-old Sushila Karki, the former chief justice of Nepal, became the top choice of the protesters to head an interim government in the country.

Sushila Karki, born on June 7, 1952, in Biratnagar in eastern Koshi province, is a jurist and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal, the only woman to have held the position after assuming the office on July 11, 2016.

On April 30, 2017, the Maoist Centre and Nepali Congress filed an impeachment motion against her after the Supreme Court annulled the government’s appointment of Jaya Bahadur Chand as police chief.

The motion was later withdrawn following strong public opposition and a Supreme Court order instructing parliament not to proceed.

Born as the eldest of seven children in her family in the Shankarpur area of Biratnagar, Karki studied at Tribhuvan University, graduating in 1972.

In 1975, she earned a master’s in political science from Banaras Hindu University in India, before returning to Tribhuvan to complete her law degree in 1978.

By 1985, she was teaching at Mahendra Multiple Campus, Dharan, and in 1990 joined the People’s Movement against the Panchayat regime.

She was briefly imprisoned in Biratnagar, and later became a senior advocate at the Nepal Bar Association in 2008.

Karki was appointed ad-hoc justice of the Supreme Court in 2009, and confirmed as permanent the following year.

After Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha retired in 2016, she was recommended by the Constitutional Council to the post and formally confirmed in July of the same year.

Known for being a "firebrand judge unafraid to ruffle powerful feathers," Karki, as chief justice, was also behind a ruling to impeach for abuse of office a powerful head of Nepal’s anti-graft body in 2016.

Earlier in 2012, she convicted a sitting Information and Communication Minister Jaya Prakash Gupta over corruption. Four years later, Karki was one of the justices who ruled against granting amnesty to former Maoist lawmaker and convicted murderer Bal Krishna Dhungel.

Her ruling against the government’s police chief appointment triggered the 2017 impeachment attempt, which automatically suspended her.

Then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had condemned the proceedings as politically motivated and harmful to judicial independence.

The controversy prompted the resignation of then Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party’s withdrawal from the ruling coalition.

In May 2017, the Supreme Court stayed the motion, and under public pressure, the government abandoned it.

Karki retired on 6 June 2017 upon reaching the age of 65.