Ap Chencho 66 has never been to a court and did not have any knowledge until the visit of the campaign team in his geog. He was fascinated by the knowing the sources of laws, the fundamental rights of the persons while having a case in the court. He said “In the olden days, we used to fear court but not these days as said by our honorable Dasho”.
60 year old Dorji Wangchuk is a village representative. He said “The campaign
is timely with the institution of democracy. We know that Their Majesties the kings brought a huge reform in the judiciary by passing many acts and bylaws to keep Bhutan stable and peace at all times. Chief justice and drangpons are representatives of His Majesty. Thus, it is like His Majesty coming to the remote places and discussing the laws with the people”. Ap Dorji Wangchuk said that he was more inspired by the talk on the constitution and its principles.
Understanding the laws on fighting was found to be most useful to a 58 year old man Dorji from Woochu. He said that fighting is one of the most common crime in any community and it will help to remind people of the consequences. When asked whether such activities from the court will strengthen judiciary, Ap Dorji said it will definitely strengthen the judiciary. He said that this is because; such activities will bring the law more closely to the people. He said that laws are almost unknown to the common citizens in the olden days. He said that it will build more confidence in the people ultimately contributing towards strengthening the judiciary.
Similarly, a class twelve student of Tenzing Higher School, Lam Rinzin said the campaign was very useful particularly to the common people who are ignorant of laws. He however, raised skepticism that even with such campaign and stringent laws, judiciary will suffer from some sort of corruption in the form of favoritism and nepotism like any other government organization. He doubted that such form of corruption will never be rooted from our society.
Chhoepoen Namgay has been negotiating and settling cases in Jangsa under Dop Shari Geog for 35 years. But he has never understood the differences between “Guarantor” and “Witness ” while writing agreements . “So far I always assumed that there isn’t differences between Jabmi and Witness. Now i realized that it was a mistake and I will correct myself as well as tell my other friends who are not here but work like me.“
Lhaba, 67 years old has served as village headman for many times in his early years in Dop Shari. He still serves as one of the village representatives. For him, he said that knowing about the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code was very important for those who has never fought a case in the court but may have to fight in the future. “I know that only one fourth of the people who came to attend this talk know about such procedure. For the rest one third, it is totally new subject but will benefit them immensely in future.” He suggested that although all the topics covered today were important, it could have been even better with inclusion of few more important clauses on environmental laws. He said that this because with increase in population every year, more people tend to throw waste everywhere due to lack of understanding the laws on such which directly pollutes environment and brings diseases in the communities.
Khandu is another participant who attended the talk. He said that among all the topics, knowing how to write petition and agreement was most useful to him despite of him being an illiterate. “I can at least understand that how important an agreement is and how it has to be written.” He said that although is now nearing 60 years old and fought cases in court never understood well about such until today. “Now I understood, so I will spread the message in my family and friends”.
Most of the people from Dotey Geog who spoke on the campaign said that such activity was very useful. Some said that many commit crimes mainly because the people are ignorant laws. Sangay is now 61 years old told that he has seen such initiatives from the court for the first time in his life. Sangay remembers that in the olden days, the laws were only meant for the people working in the courts. That is why laws were never made public and people never had the opportunity to defend their cases properly. Whatever was done by the court was final and binding.
Tandin is a farmer who is now 74 years old. For him, knowing about the rights of the individuals while fighting cases by the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code was very important steps taken to strengthen the judiciary. He said that such will boost the morality of the court in delivering fair justice to the people.
Lamgong geog
For lamgops, they found the campaign useful and educating. A group of women said that they were especially impressed to know about the སྲོག་སྨན་ཟས. According to them, till now they understood that it is applicable if the husband does not come and take care of them during the delivery time.
Tsento geog
A famer has come all the way from Gunyi Tsawa (རྒུ་ཉིད་རྩ་བ་) walking about four hours to listen to the talk said that he is satisfied for the sacrifices he has made by coming here to attend the talk. He told that such campaign has definitely helped the common people like him. He added that with change of time, it is very important for everyone understand the does and donts.
An old lady from Tsento Shari said that she is attending such campaign for the first time. She said “I did not know about the campaign today. I thought that it is going to a normal public gathering (འཛོམས་འདུ). This campaign is really useful and wish that more of my family members could have come“.
Another lady said that this is really useful to us who has never been to court and look forward to such campaign in future.
Opinions
Sonam Tshering
The campaign was observed to be a huge success as it was very well received by the public from all the geogs. The success was also indicated by the people‘s perspectives.
Everyone we talked to said that it was really useful and particularly to the common people who does not have any exposure on laws. It was also found to be helpful to the people in the villages who are daily involved in the settling cases in their respective villages or communities.
Considering the impacts it has made to the public, it is a stepping stone towards strengthening the judiciary. This is as said by many people who attend the campaign that by educating the general public judiciary has built more confidence in the minds of the public. When judiciary is able to gain more public confidence, more people who come to seek justice are ensured justice and are satisfied. This ultimately help the judiciary to work even harder to maintian the public confidence at all times so that judiciary grows even better .
This kind of initiative on the part of the public will have a lot of positive impact on the general public. It is because, when people know what is right and wrong and how one can be punished incase of breaking the norms of the society.This means, that the crimes commited due to ignorant of laws such as battery, assual, harrasment, theft, smuggling of religious relics, eve teasing etc. Will reduce in the fture.
It will also help most of the matrimonial cases since they have understood that there is no extra compensations by filing the case in the court. Instead, they will resort to settle the case interanally.
In short, such kinds of legal advocacy campaigns are very much useful and required in the society where majority of the people in the rural areas are ignorant of laws.
This Legal Advocacy Campaign is the result of resolution of 90th Dzongkhag Tshogdue of Paro last year. It is also the first time in Bhutan where a public requested for such campaign
60 year old Dorji Wangchuk is a village representative. He said “The campaign
is timely with the institution of democracy. We know that Their Majesties the kings brought a huge reform in the judiciary by passing many acts and bylaws to keep Bhutan stable and peace at all times. Chief justice and drangpons are representatives of His Majesty. Thus, it is like His Majesty coming to the remote places and discussing the laws with the people”. Ap Dorji Wangchuk said that he was more inspired by the talk on the constitution and its principles.
Understanding the laws on fighting was found to be most useful to a 58 year old man Dorji from Woochu. He said that fighting is one of the most common crime in any community and it will help to remind people of the consequences. When asked whether such activities from the court will strengthen judiciary, Ap Dorji said it will definitely strengthen the judiciary. He said that this is because; such activities will bring the law more closely to the people. He said that laws are almost unknown to the common citizens in the olden days. He said that it will build more confidence in the people ultimately contributing towards strengthening the judiciary.
Similarly, a class twelve student of Tenzing Higher School, Lam Rinzin said the campaign was very useful particularly to the common people who are ignorant of laws. He however, raised skepticism that even with such campaign and stringent laws, judiciary will suffer from some sort of corruption in the form of favoritism and nepotism like any other government organization. He doubted that such form of corruption will never be rooted from our society.
Chhoepoen Namgay has been negotiating and settling cases in Jangsa under Dop Shari Geog for 35 years. But he has never understood the differences between “Guarantor” and “Witness ” while writing agreements . “So far I always assumed that there isn’t differences between Jabmi and Witness. Now i realized that it was a mistake and I will correct myself as well as tell my other friends who are not here but work like me.“
Lhaba, 67 years old has served as village headman for many times in his early years in Dop Shari. He still serves as one of the village representatives. For him, he said that knowing about the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code was very important for those who has never fought a case in the court but may have to fight in the future. “I know that only one fourth of the people who came to attend this talk know about such procedure. For the rest one third, it is totally new subject but will benefit them immensely in future.” He suggested that although all the topics covered today were important, it could have been even better with inclusion of few more important clauses on environmental laws. He said that this because with increase in population every year, more people tend to throw waste everywhere due to lack of understanding the laws on such which directly pollutes environment and brings diseases in the communities.
Khandu is another participant who attended the talk. He said that among all the topics, knowing how to write petition and agreement was most useful to him despite of him being an illiterate. “I can at least understand that how important an agreement is and how it has to be written.” He said that although is now nearing 60 years old and fought cases in court never understood well about such until today. “Now I understood, so I will spread the message in my family and friends”.
Most of the people from Dotey Geog who spoke on the campaign said that such activity was very useful. Some said that many commit crimes mainly because the people are ignorant laws. Sangay is now 61 years old told that he has seen such initiatives from the court for the first time in his life. Sangay remembers that in the olden days, the laws were only meant for the people working in the courts. That is why laws were never made public and people never had the opportunity to defend their cases properly. Whatever was done by the court was final and binding.
Tandin is a farmer who is now 74 years old. For him, knowing about the rights of the individuals while fighting cases by the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code was very important steps taken to strengthen the judiciary. He said that such will boost the morality of the court in delivering fair justice to the people.
Lamgong geog
For lamgops, they found the campaign useful and educating. A group of women said that they were especially impressed to know about the སྲོག་སྨན་ཟས. According to them, till now they understood that it is applicable if the husband does not come and take care of them during the delivery time.
Tsento geog
A famer has come all the way from Gunyi Tsawa (རྒུ་ཉིད་རྩ་བ་) walking about four hours to listen to the talk said that he is satisfied for the sacrifices he has made by coming here to attend the talk. He told that such campaign has definitely helped the common people like him. He added that with change of time, it is very important for everyone understand the does and donts.
An old lady from Tsento Shari said that she is attending such campaign for the first time. She said “I did not know about the campaign today. I thought that it is going to a normal public gathering (འཛོམས་འདུ). This campaign is really useful and wish that more of my family members could have come“.
Another lady said that this is really useful to us who has never been to court and look forward to such campaign in future.
Opinions
Sonam Tshering
The campaign was observed to be a huge success as it was very well received by the public from all the geogs. The success was also indicated by the people‘s perspectives.
Everyone we talked to said that it was really useful and particularly to the common people who does not have any exposure on laws. It was also found to be helpful to the people in the villages who are daily involved in the settling cases in their respective villages or communities.
Considering the impacts it has made to the public, it is a stepping stone towards strengthening the judiciary. This is as said by many people who attend the campaign that by educating the general public judiciary has built more confidence in the minds of the public. When judiciary is able to gain more public confidence, more people who come to seek justice are ensured justice and are satisfied. This ultimately help the judiciary to work even harder to maintian the public confidence at all times so that judiciary grows even better .
This kind of initiative on the part of the public will have a lot of positive impact on the general public. It is because, when people know what is right and wrong and how one can be punished incase of breaking the norms of the society.This means, that the crimes commited due to ignorant of laws such as battery, assual, harrasment, theft, smuggling of religious relics, eve teasing etc. Will reduce in the fture.
It will also help most of the matrimonial cases since they have understood that there is no extra compensations by filing the case in the court. Instead, they will resort to settle the case interanally.
In short, such kinds of legal advocacy campaigns are very much useful and required in the society where majority of the people in the rural areas are ignorant of laws.
This Legal Advocacy Campaign is the result of resolution of 90th Dzongkhag Tshogdue of Paro last year. It is also the first time in Bhutan where a public requested for such campaign
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