The government of Nepal has to revise the controversial new mountaineering rules for Mount Everest and other mountains in the country higher than 6,500-meters. The country’s Supreme Court supported the position of several plaintiffs who found that the new rules were a discrimination against disabled people. Among other things, the government had decided at the end of December with immediate effect not to issue permits to double-amputee climbers and blind people. The complainants had stated inter alia that Nepal had signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and that the new rules clearly contradicted these rights. This opinion was followed by the five judges of the Supreme Court.

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The Supreme Court of Nepal, the highest court in the Himalayan state, does not recognize the supposedly fastest ascent of Mount Everest. There was no evidence that Pemba Dorje Sherpa really ascended on 21 May 2004 in just eight hours and 10 minutes from the base camp on the south side of the highest mountain in the world to the summit at 8,850 meters, the court said, adding that there was no summit picture, nor could another climber confirm that Pemba Dorje had been at the top that day. The court said that the record was now back to Lakpa Gelu Sherpa, who had reached the summit on 26 May 2003 in ten hours and 56 minutes.

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