A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO INCREASING WOMEN’S ACCESS TO ELECTORAL JUSTICE and the ruling party, is not in line with the principles of independence and impartiality, and is contrary to best practice. Several interviewees mentioned that the composition of the ECN does not guarantee that the commissioners are free of political party ties. Moreover, the EDR committee and monitoring teams (which have roles in detecting and investigating cases) also include members of the government. Though ECN officials expressed that they try to resolve cases quickly, they often receive cases referred by returning officers or monitoring officers that could have been resolved at the constituency level. This increases the caseload burden on the ECN. Interlocutors outside the ECN noted that it likely does not have the funding, expertise, and other resources to handle all electoral complaints in a timely manner. However, interlocutors also pointed to the suspected political biases of the commissioners in addressing or resolving complaints (or not) – notably during the campaign period. Some believe the ECN delays resolving complaints to avoid appearing partisan by making rulings that would favor one party over the other; others reported that this lack of transparency and delays in resolving violations is actually the result of the ECN being partisan. The thinking is that, in not resolving certain complaints, the ECN already favors one party (the one in violation) over another. For example, the Political Party Act requires that one-third of all members of committees – at all levels in the party – be women. If parties do not respect this quota, the ECN has the power to refuse to register a new party or to decline to have the party participate in elections. Stakeholders reported, however, that major parties have failed to meet the 33 percent threshold but are still able to participate in the election. One interviewee gave an example of a party that was able to register without the required proportion of women. The ECN did not raise this issue at a hearing because of political pressure on commissioners to leave the party alone. Another interviewee cited “a lack of political will to go the extra mile to resolve complaints.” Because of these issues, some people do not file complaints because they may not believe their issues will be resolved. This may be particularly true for women. Multiple interviewees noted that women – who face more scrutiny in filing cases – do not want to risk the negative attention they will receive if their cases are not resolved. Therefore, they don’t file. The ECN addressed around 130 complaints in the 2022 elections, although it is not clear how many were filed by women. The lack of transparency on the number of complaints filed and resolved remains a concern at the ECN. It contributes to a lack of understanding about its decisions to act on reports of violations (based on complaints or its own initiative) and leads to perceived bias in its actions or inactions on election disputes. Through its newly designed case management system (CMS), the ECN will attempt to remedy the lack of data by registering all disputes filed in 2022, including gender disaggregated data on filing complaints and the respondents or plaintiffs; roles of lawyers; and nature of disputes affecting women. Political parties may violate laws or policies in an effort to exclude women from nominations and the political process generally, but women complainants have nowhere to go to file disputes on intraparty issues. All of Nepal’s major political parties are headed by men despite the requirement in the Political Parties Act that 33 percent of party leadership be women. Party leadership decides on candidate nominations in closed-door meetings. According to an interviewee, they reportedly do not believe women can win elections due to a “deep-rooted patriarchal mindset.” Nepal’s mixed electoral system for Provincial Assembly and House of Representatives elections decides some seats via proportional representation and others by the first-past-the-post process. IFES’s research surfaced a belief that parties do not want to run women in first-past-the-post seats because they do not think women can win them. This may be in part because many women have fewer resources spend on their campaigns, and women have 61