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Capital punishment in Bhutan was abolished on March 20, 2004 and is prohibited under the 2008 Constitution. The prohibition appears among a number of fundamental rights 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 by the first King of Bhutan, Ugyen Wangchuck, 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 Jigme Palden Dorji was assassinated in a dispute among competing political factions. The King's own uncle and head of the Royal Bhutan Army, Namgyal Bahadur, was among those executed for their role in the attempted coup.

See also

• Law enforcement in Bhutan
• Human rights in Bhutan
• Religion and capital punishment
• Judicial system of Bhutan
• Constitution of Bhutan

References

1. Kinley Dorji (2007-03-27). "Capital punishment abolished in Bhutan". Kuensel. Archived from the original on 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
2. Constitution of Bhutan Archived July 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Art. 7, § 18
3. White, J. Claude (1909). "Appendix I – The Laws of Bhutan". Sikhim & Bhutan: Twenty-One Years on the North-East Frontier, 1887–1908. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. pp. 301–10. ISBN 9780598739278. Retrieved 2010-12-25.
4. "National Security Act of Bhutan 1992" (PDF). Government of Bhutan. 1992-11-02. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
5. "Timeline: Bhutan". BBC News online. 2010-05-05. Retrieved 2010-10-01.
6. Worden, Robert L. (1991). "Modernization under Jigme Dorji, 1952–72". In Savada, Andrea Matles (ed.). Nepal and Bhutan: Country Studies (3rd ed.). Federal Research Division, United States Library of Congress. ISBN 0-8444-0777-1. Retrieved 2010-10-19.

External links

• "The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan" (PDF). Government of Bhutan. 2008-07-18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
• "༄༅།།འབྲུག་གི་རྩ་ཁྲིམས་ཆེན་མོ།།" [The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan] (PDF) (in Dzongkha). Government of Bhutan. 2008-07-18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2010-10-19.

v t e Bhutanese law
Sources	Constitution of Bhutan Treaties Acts
Institutions and agencies	Attorney General Judicial system: Royal Court of Justice Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs: Police and prisons Parliament
Courts	Supreme Court High Court Dzongkhag Courts Dungkhag Courts
Issues	Capital punishment Censorship Crime Driglam namzha Elections and voting Human rights Immigration Law enforcement LGBT rights Local governance (decentralization) Refugees Religious freedom Taxation Tobacco laws

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