The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Office of Attorney General (OAG) has organized the first of its kind joint investigation and prosecution training with an objective to address joint visions of the two institutions (Royal Bhutan Police and OAG) to strengthen the professional capacity of law implementers, to coordinate between the two institutes, to streamline uniform investigation, and criminal prosecution of the RBP and revise the prosecution manual of the OAG.
The application of standard, uniform, and common methods of investigation and prosecution are expected to uphold due process, protection of rights, women and children’s rights and rule of law.
Attorney General, Lungten Dubgyur said that through this training they aim to strengthen professionalism, build capacity, and sensitize on basic human rights, constitutional principles, due process of law, fair trial, rule of law and access to justice.
“Compilation of uniform investigation reports across all police stations would be one objective. We also aim to enhance and improve the linkages between the two agencies with other justice sectors in matters related to the roles of prosecutors, police, and other agencies on diversion of Child in Conflict with Laws and address issues related to Domestic Violence, prevention, through the training,” he added. Likewise, there are other objectives as well.
He said that the services provided by OAG have always been a challenge. However, to achieve various goals, the OAG has recently embarked on various reform initiatives including the standardization of criminal prosecutions to address the conglomeration of cases in the courts resulting from cases being of a frivolous and trivial nature.
Through this training, he said, “We would expect to come up with uniform common investigation procedure and uniform charge sheeting of the cases. With the training we are going to develop a profound system between the OAG and RBP.”
Any cases which are above misdemeanor should be prosecuted by OAG and all the reports they get from the police stations are different whereby they try to make it uniform in terms of charge sheeting to court. Now they can eliminate so many duplications, he added.
He said, “We are working towards Enterprise Legal Management System which would take care of online filing of cases.”
Meanwhile, Lt. Col Chador Namgay from RPB said that the coordination between OAG and RBP will further be enhanced and the number of cases getting dropped due to lack of coordination can be addressed through the training.
“Before, when we submit our investigation report to OAG they would revisit the case and when they do not have convincing evidence, they would just drop the case and this happens due to lack of coordination. After working so hard on a case and when they drop a case, we feel it is a waste,” he added.
They were able to share issues and challenges with each other which can eventually lead to a smooth joint investigation, he said, adding that they can have uniformity in charge sheeting.
The joint training was attended by senior police officers, NCO’s, attorneys from OAG and legal officers from the ministries and agencies. The training will be organized in five batches.
