Annual Judicial Commission

The Supreme Court chief justice, Lyonpo Sonam Tobgye, assumed the role of a teacher yesterday, inoculating a relatively new crop of judges, especially those from dungkhag courts, with a dose of legal principles and philosophies.

It was the sixth day of the judiciary’s annual conference in Thimphu, which began on June 1.

Using a white board to explain the various theories and legal principles, the chief justice asked the judges from over 35 dungkhag and district courts, high court and supreme court to understand, which school of thought they belonged to and their strengths and weaknesses.

“Are you a conservative judge, a liberal one, a pragmatist, idealist, teleological, consequentialist or a functionalist?” he asked the judges, adding that, in the next five years, the public, including the media, ought to know which legal philosophies and thoughts guide a judge, based on his or her judgements.

For instance, a conservative judge, he said, went by the book; while a liberal judge allowed rooms for manoeuvre.

A drangpon following the teleological theory would judge an action in terms of external goals or purpose, while the consequentialist theory measured the moral worth of the consequences, which could be good, neutral or evil.

“That’s why I tell judges to keep their mind open until the very last day of a case,” the chief justice said.

Removing quasi-judicial powers at dungkhag level, 12 courts opened in March 2009 manned by dungkhag drangpons. Earlier, dungpas were bestowed with the authority to make decisions akin to those of a judge in the dungkhags, besides other administrative powers.

“This is the first meeting where judges are exploring together the legal theories and philosophies,” a dungkhag court judge said, adding that this was an important issue, mainly for the fresh batch of dungthrims.

From Plato’s theory of justice to Thomas Hobbe’s natural law, which refers to the use of reason to analyse human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behaviour, the chief justice explained it all. “I want to expose judges to all these various ideas,” he said.

A district court judge said it was important for judges to know these legal philosophies, to understand how rules and laws are framed, and how they came to a particular judgement on a case. “These judgments should, however, be free of all biases,” he said.

Lyonpo Sonam Tobgye asked every judge to choose two subjects or areas, in which they would like to specialise. “In the next few years, we want to build the expertise in the judiciary,” he said, adding that, within the next two to three years, the judiciary’s emphasis would be on the quality of justice delivered.

The conference ends on June 11. Source: Kuenselonline