Capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
was abolished on March 20, 2004
and is prohibited by the
2008 Constitution.
[Constitution of Bhutan]
, Art. 7, § 18 The prohibition appears among a number of
fundamental rights
Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Sustai ...
guaranteed by the Constitution; while some fundamental rights—such as voting, land ownership, and equal pay—extend only to Bhutanese citizens, the prohibition on capital punishment applies to all people within the kingdom.
History
Under the reforms to the
Tsa Yig
The Cha Yig () is any monastic constitution or code of moral discipline based on codified Tibetan Buddhist precepts. Every Tibetan monastery and convent had its own Cha Yig, and the variation in Cha Yig content shows a degree of autonomy and inter ...
by the first
King of Bhutan
The Druk Gyalpo (; 'Dragon King') is the head of state of the Kingdom of Bhutan. In the Dzongkha language, Bhutan is known as ''Drukyul'' which translates as "The Land of the Thunder Dragon". Thus, while kings of Bhutan are known as ''Druk ...
,
Ugyen Wangchuck
''Gongsar'' Ugyen Wangchuck ( dz, ཨོ་རྒྱན་དབང་ཕྱུག, ; 11 June 1862 – 26 August 1926) was the first Druk Gyalpo (King) of Bhutan from 1907 to 1926. In his lifetime, he made efforts to unite the fledgling country a ...
, capital punishment was the penalty for murderers who fled the scene and for those who forged government documents.
Under the National Security Act of 1992, the death penalty was designated for those guilty of "treasonable acts" or of overt acts "with intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy in order to deliberately and voluntarily betray" the royal government.
On April 5, 1964,
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Jigme Palden Dorji was assassinated in a dispute among competing political factions. The King's own uncle and head of the
Royal Bhutan Army
The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA; dz, བསྟན་སྲུང་དམག་སྡེ་, bStan-srung dmag-sde) is a branch of the armed forces of the Kingdom of Bhutan responsible for maintaining the country's territorial integrity and sovereign ...
, Namgyal Bahadur, was among those executed for their role in the attempted coup.
See also
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Law enforcement in Bhutan Law enforcement in Bhutan is the collective purview of several divisions of Bhutan's Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs. Namely, the Ministry's Bureau of Law and Order, Department of Immigration, and Department of Local Governance are responsible ...
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Human rights in Bhutan Human rights in Bhutan are those outlined in Article 7 of its Constitution.[Religion and capital punishment
The major world religions have taken varied positions on the morality of capital punishment and as such, they have historically impacted the way in which governments handle such punishment practices. Although the viewpoints of some religions have ...](_blank)
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Judicial system of Bhutan
The judicial system of Bhutan is the purview of the Royal Court of Justice, the judicial branch of the government of Bhutan under the Constitution of 2008. The judicial system comprises the Judicial Commission, the courts, the police, the penal c ...
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Constitution of Bhutan
The Constitution of Bhutan ( Dzongkha: འབྲུག་གི་རྩ་ཁྲིམས་ཆེན་མོ་; Wylie:'' 'Druk-gi cha-thrims-chen-mo'') was enacted 18 July 2008 by the Royal Government of Bhutan. The Constitution was thorough ...
References
External links
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Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
Law enforcement in Bhutan
Death in Bhutan
Human rights abuses in Bhutan
2004 disestablishments in Bhutan
{{Criminal-law-stub