SAARC Chief Justices’ Conference and 12th SAARCLAW Conference in Thimphu

 

Secretary General of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Law (SAARCLAW) Mr Hemant Batra, President of SAARCLAW Bhutan Justice Tshering Wangchuk, and Director General of SAIEVAC Dr Rinchen Chophel held a press conference with the local journalist in Bhutan last Thursday.

SAARCLAW is an association of the legal communities of the SAARC countries comprising judges, lawyers, academician, law teachers, public officers, and host of law related persons, duly registered with the SAARC Secretariat at Kathmandu. It disseminates information to promote an understanding of concerns and developments in the region.

The ninth SAARC Chief Justices’ conference and 12th SAARCLAW conference on child protection and constitutionalism (securing the future) will be held in Thimphu, Bhutan from May 24 to May 26 on the broad theme of “Child Protection and Constitutionalism”. The conference, the first ever, in South Asia where the judiciary in all its force is coming together with South Asia Initiative Ending Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC) to discuss and find a way to reinforce the collective effort to create a better world for our children.

SAIEVAC, the inter-governmental organization is based in Katmandu, Nepal. The organization spearheads issues pertaining to child protection and violence against children and to create movement and the social mobilization to bring together different stakeholders and partners in the countries and governments of SAARC to create an environment to address the issues of child protection, and to end the violence against children.

“The movement is linked to global movement for ending violence against children, so in terms of institutional setup SAIEVAC, is one of most unique institutions globally in terms of collaboration through which we are hosting very historical conference as per as any part of world is concern,” said the Director General of SAIEVAC Dr Rinchen Chophel.

“What we hope to do, in 3 days conference through SAIEVAC, is to ensure that the work which we do in child right organization movement is to bring in both most critical element of judicial to provide environment that is more child friendly. Find an environment to work together where we can collectively address more meaningfully, the protection for children and ultimately adding violence against children,” he added

SAARCLAW was established in Colombo on October 24, 1991, when the President of Sri Lanka, His Excellency Ranasinghe Premadasa inaugurated the association in the presence of a large gathering of the legal community. In the nineteen years, affiliate country chapters have been established in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The activities of the organization have taken place in the Republic of Maldives as well.

The first SAARCLAW conference was held in Sri Lanka in 1991. Since then, conferences, seminars, and symposiums have been held almost every year in the SAARC region, at Colombo, Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Male, New Delhi, Chandigarh and Jaipur.

The 11th SAARCLAW conference was hosted by Bhutan from June 10-11, 2005 in Paro, Bhutan. The conference was based on the theme “Law and Development” bridging the gap and was held in conjunction with the 8th SAARC Chief Justices’ meet. The conference was attended by great legal emissaries including all the Chief Justices of the member countries of SAARCLAW.

President of SAARCLAW Bhutan, Justice Tshering Wangchuk said, “SAARCLAW conference and the SAARC Chief Justice Conference happen together. It’s a privilege and honor for people of legal communities to interact and meet chief Justice of SAARC region.”

“We have similar problems and issues in all parts of the world and institution developed parallel and then how each countries and organization deals with certain problems, we can learn from each other, you don’t have to reinvent will every time. Therefore, when this sort of conference happens, first of all the exchange of knowledge, information and people to people contact, which is I think helpful,” he added

Secretary General of SAARCLAW Hemant Batra said, “SAARCLAW gains great significance in light of the fact that we are in developing region of south Asian, for us protection of our citizen. New law, news, regulation, polices is very important.”

“Bhutan as a young democracy, parliament is young, with this regards to other countries other than Bhutan, in south Asian region we realized that parliamentarians were not being able to meet up to expectation of people. We thought SAARCLAW will act as facilitator for new legislation making of new police, rules and regulation for its citizen,” he said

While passing orders and judgment, you will realize that they are not only interpreting laws they are actually going ahead in giving birth to newer dimensions as to law. Law is passed by the parliament. It is kind of a piece of paper. Its judiciary making understand people what law stands for, how law has to be read, and how it should be implemented.

“We find that judicial organ of government played an effective role in good governance of country , which parliament, I would say was failing, but was getting disabled because of political concentration, so in that context we have started this conference,” he said

This conference was hosted by Royal Court Of Justice, Bhutan and organized by the SAARLAW, Bhutan in collaboration with the SAIEVAC.

Tshering Dorji