Naming and shaming: A public trial-above Rule of Law

This article was posted on my Facebook on 13 April 2018

Any person, who commits a crime deserves the most stringent punishments. But, no person shall be punished at the whims and fancies of certain agencies.
Rule of law is the fundamental in democracy and due process of law is pillar on which rule of law rest. Naming and shaming of suspects by any law enforcement agency can be termed a lawlessness. I am sure, legal luminary will agree with me that, there exist no law in any manner in Bhutan, authorizing any agency to name and shame any person, no matter what kind of crime he or she may have committed.
I wonder, where does the Royal Bhutan Police derive such authority? Or does the RBP as law enforcement agency enjoy such discretionary authority overriding the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. I am not undermining the enormous contribution of RBP to the nation in maintaining peace and order in the country and tireless works they do.

We must remember that, all persons are equal before law and equal protection of law [Article 7(15)] and any person charged with a penal offences has right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty [ Art 7(16)] and every person and his family has right to privacy [Art 7 (19)]. These are fundamental rights and hence, even the parliament has no authority to enact any law against such rights.

For any person to punish for penal offence, there must be due process of law and not otherwise.

Naming and shaming of any person leads to build public opinion and creates such person as guilty in the minds of the public even before they are tried and their family and relative's right to privacy is violated. Without due process of law, punishing any person for mere suspected of any crime. It is even, more unfortunate that, even so called guardian of the constitution, the fountain of Justice, the Courts remained blind and deaf, the Office of the Attorney General, the nation's peak of legal luminary forgot to honour the basic rights of accused and so does our so called NGOs saw no profit in raising the voice of these voiceless persons.

Therefore, any person aggrieved by such actions of the state, must knock the doors of the justice and be compensated accordingly.In a democracy, we expect every organization to shoulder their responsibilities within the limits of the law and constitutional framework. Democracy without obedience to law can be a dangerous and actions that could lead to violation of the fundamental rights assured by Constitution is even more dangerous and worrisome. As nation of GNH, our focus shall not be on the deterrence and vengeance justice instead must focus on reformative justice.