Bhutan Legal Needs Assessment Final Report

Abstract

“What is Justice?”

With that short, but extremely complex question on our minds, four researchers from the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (“JSW Law”) spent a combined eleven months visiting each of Bhutan’s twenty Dzongkhags. The Law School began to lay the foundations for this field research in 2016. Plans to conduct research of this nature grew from ongoing policy discussions about whether the 12th Five Year Plan (“FYP”) should specifically designate a “Justice Sector” for planning, fundraising, and monitoring purposes. In the interim, of course, there now exists such an integrated Justice Sector, and planning for that sector is now coordinated by the Royal Courts of Justice. As part of that planning process, Bhutan’s official planning body, the Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) formally gave JSW Law the mandate to carry out this study.

The purpose of the study is three-fold: First, it is intended as a crucial initial step towards the development of a quantitative index to measure the effectiveness of Bhutan’s efforts to strengthen its Justice Sector, building on international but also, more importantly, local understandings of “justice.” Second, it is intended to inform JSW Law’s curriculum, ensuring that Bhutan’s next generation of lawyers are familiar with customary Bhutanese understanding of justice. Finally, it is intended to field test a methodology that can be used also in other countries hoping to answer similar questions with regard to their own justice systems.

Keywords: Bhutan, GNH, Law, Justice, Rule of Law, Dignity, Mediation, Traditional Dispute Resolution, Entrepreneur