Can Nepal’s new traffic fines survive scrutiny?

Nepal’s Ministry of Infrastructure Development has drafted a new law, the Vehicles and Transport Management Bill, that would raise traffic fines from the current Rs 500-1,500 range to as much as Rs 100,000 for a single offence. The bill is still a draft sitting with the Ministry of Law for review; it has not been passed by Parliament, but the size of the numbers alone has already set off a public argument. Officials say the country needs sharper deterrents on roads that kill roughly 28 people out of every 100,000 each year. Critics say a single fine worth three or four months’ income for an ordinary worker is not deterrence; it is ruin.

Lawyers have a name for the legal question buried inside that argument: is the punishment proportionate to the offence? Courts around the world have spent decades building tools to answer exactly this question.