Lobsang Dakpa, defendant lawyer of President of Central Tibetan Administration Lobsang Sangay and his Cabinet, speaks to the press after the first hearing of the defamation case filed by Penpa Tsering against them, in Dharamshala, India, on 5 June 2019. File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
Tibet Sun Newsroom
McLEOD GANJ, India, 5 December 2019
The Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission (TSJC) has summoned lawyer of the Tibetan Cabinet Lobsang Dakpa to hear his explanation for his comments on the court’s decision in Case no 20. The matter will be heard tomorrow (6 December) at 2:30 pm India time.
Lobsang Dakpa said during a press conference after the court issued its decision on 14 October that it was “not a fair judgment”. “The judgment was not based on facts. Confidential documents were nullified, as well as documents related to Ganden Phodrang were all ignored and withdrawn,” he said.
He added that the Cabinet’s witness Dhardon Sharling was discredited, the court saying she was not able to prove her stand. “The other two who were named as witnesses along with Dhardon were not even contacted to ask their opinions.”
Plaintiff Penpa Tsering appealed to the Tibetan court to take action against Lobsang Dakpa for his comments criticising the court’s judgment, which falls under “Contempt of Court” in Civil Procedure Article 84.
A summons issued to Lobsang Dakpa by TSJC on 22 November said that he has been called to explain why he should not be penalised for the comments.
The Lobsang Sangay-led Cabinet of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) issued a 10-point charge against Penpa Tsering justifying their dismissal of him from the Office of Tibet in Washington DC. The post he held is called the Representative of the Dalai Lama.
The ninth point of the charges said: “He [Penpa Tsering] tried hard to convince a female Kalon nominee against working with Sikyong, stating that doing so would jeopardise the individual’s career. The individual had to put up with a four-hour session of Representative Penpa Tsering making disparaging remarks about Sikyong and trying to foil Sikyong’s attempts to appoint the only female Kalon.”
Dhardon Sharling stood as witness in the court on 7 August. Jigme Tsultrim stood as witness supporting the plaintiff Penpa Tsering.
The Tibetan court in its judgment cleared Penpa Tsering of all ten charges against him, and ordered the Cabinet to issue a written apology to be published in all its information outlets.
Another part of the order: to pay Penpa Tsering’s lawyar Namgyal Tsekyi a sum of rupees 98,000 (1,400 USD approx) was fulfilled by the Cabinet.
Since the Cabinet had not fully conformed to the order by the 13 November deadline, Penpa Tsering appealed to the court to take cognisance of the matter under Civil Procedure Article 84.
Then a second order was issued asking the Cabinet to apologise by 27 December, failing which the rights of the members to stand in elections and to vote would be withheld.
The cauldron is kept boiling to undermine the Tibetan Government in-exile. Under the guise of so called “democracy”, a concerted effort is waged by a mob to discredit, humiliate and disparage the Kashag. This is the work of foreign inspired campaign, like the one we saw during Trump campaign in 2016. It started with tarnishing Clinton’s image by exposing her private emails through the Russians who were in cahoots with Trump’s officials. It helped Trump to smear Hillary to such an extent that, finally, Trump won which was totally unexpected.
Today, we have a mob who has consistently disparaged the Tibetan Government of “corruption” “womanising”, “arrogance” and “nepotism”, thus undermining the legitimacy and credibility of the exile leadership. Their goal is exactly like that of the CCP, who see the Tibetan exile outfit as a thorn in its flesh. Their coveted goal is to install a Manchurian candidate who would be a compliant puppet of the CCP. This is happening in Taiwan with the KMT and they did the same in Nepal with the Maoist leader KP Sharma Oli. The drama which is played and replayed is to keep the candidate in the limelight so that, come 2021, the fresh memory will kickstart the campaign and gate-crash their candidate as the next Sikyong. To that end they are hellbent to destroy people’s faith in the Kashag, which would severely debilitate its effort and will finally result in the demise of the Tibetan movement.
Tibetans are united under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. At least 90% of the people don’t think in terms of regional affiliations. Everyone thinks of freedom for our country and people, and not about undermining ourselves. The deviants who cry disunity are the very culprits who are actually responsible for the discord that may exist among some of us.
LS’s whole strategy is based on a lie. Their biggest mistake is not calling the bigger liar, Geshe Lharam Adruk Tseten, as witness. They thought Dhardon Sharling would do the job.
What we are witnessing is the worst part of our monk Chithues? All our high lamas preach unity, but where are they when they were electing Chithues from their sects?
Adruk Tseten really brought shame to the robe he wears. Maybe we should go the Bhutanese way by keeping the Sangha out of politics and people like Adruk Tseten can wear plus size jeans and stand for election as provincial representative and outdo others in his province.
Lobsang Drakpa failed because he pawned his brain to Adruk Tseten and started following Adruk Tseten’s advice. LS will tell another lie and his naive followers will be happy to clap.
I would say, what about having a monk for Sikyong rather than lay people? During the reign of the Dalai Lama, everything was fine and I am sure you have no problem agreeing with it. During Samdhong Rinpoche’s two terms as Kalon Tripa, it also went smoothly without much ado except a little hiccup about selling some assets.
However, since the lay people came up as leaders, we are witnessing all this bad blood, jealousy, ego clash and worse, regionalism. This is the result of the lay people who have poor moral fibre and weakness for mundane pursuit of self-esteem and self-gratification. The totally unnecessary court case is a stark reminder of the frailties of lay people who have to think of their family, their relatives, their region, and their bank balance. These in turn get the worst of their instinct and we have a situation like we are now!!!!
Monks have no such shackles and are free to devote their time and energy for the cause of Tibet. 99% of Tibetans self-immolating in Tibet and outside are monks or ex-monks, Do you know that??? What does this show? Who is more committed to Tibet’s freedom — monk or lay?
Open your eyes wide and clear your clogged ears and listen and watch the fire the monks have in their belly for a free Tibet. Why do you have to pick on the few rotten apples among the monk chitues? What about Deputy Speaker Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok or Kalon Yuthok Karma Gelek? Why don’t you see them? Do they not count? Do you see any fault in their conduct? The great Sakya Pandit Kunga Gyaltsen said, གཞན་ལ་བལྟ་བའི་མིག་ཡོད་ཀྱང་། རང་ལ་བལྟ་བའི་མེ་ལོང་དགོས། Even if you have no respect for the monks, you should first look at your behaviour and then judge others. It is the constitutional RIGHT of every Tibetan to stand for the highest office!!!!
This matter has brought negative publicity and impression to the outside world. Even after the verdict of the highest court of exile society, the Kashag continues to ignore the court’s order and is setting a dangerous precedent by not respecting the final judgment of the court. This clearly shows the true color of our leader and his team’s concern for the real issues facing the Tibetan people. They have already wasted sufficient time and energy in fighting this legal case, and this is not the reason why we have elected you to this office. Please put an end to this matter now as the Tibetan people are fed up with this ego clash.
Do not forget our real goal at this critical hour. Show the wisdom of good leadership to resolve this case for the greater interest of Tibet.
Commission is not a court: commission is part of the executive branch not the judiciary.
Legal inquiry does not equate drangden or justice; and the word justice is not the visible part of the title of this body. Maybe it’s hidden goal? Courts render judgements that are hopefully fair and just “drangden”.
First level commission would be hard to claim to be supreme? I suppose the word is Premier.
Premier Commission may be better English translation?
Khrim is law which may or may not be just.
1. Kashag could have simply issued a public apology as per the direction of the TSJ and put an end to the matter and say that they are doing so just to maintain harmony in the exile community though they aren’t fully satisfied with the judgment. This could shut the mouths of their opponents while rising in the eyes of their supporters. By not doing so Kashag looks arrogant and foolish.
2. Now that he stands vindicated of all charges, the respect for him will grow manifold if he tells the court that he doesn’t want to insist on public apology from Kashag which is the highest administrative body in the exile community. But by insisting on public apology he looks arrogant and revengeful.
3. I am impressed by the present Chief Supreme Justice Commissioner who held different important posts under present Sikyong. In spite of working under him, he has shown his unbiased nature.
4. Thumbs down to both the plaintiff and defendants, and thumbs up to TSJ.
Sonam Tsering from Dharamshala,
One can understand the frustration of many Tibetans with the current state of exile politics. We love to regard unity as something sacred, but the very reason why everyone parrots “unity” like a mantra is the undeniable fact that our cultural DNA is deeply sectarian and regional. The present Dalai Lama is the only uniting factor and He is the one who saw and knew at a very young age how Tibetan society was deeply superstitious, patriarchal, hierarchical, and feudalistic.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the present Dalai Lama both attempted to modernize Tibetan society through the rule of law and democratic reforms without any success, due to both historical reasons and deeply entrenched resistance from the monastic establishment.
It was only after coming into exile that we Tibetans were able to create a pan-Tibetan identity, but this was always fraught with the underpinnings of sectarian and regional politicking. Samdhong Rinpoche during his two-decades-long service in both legislative and executive leadership laid the foundation for the rule of law and democracy in exile.
Then came Lobsang Sangay who ran on the three slogans of Unity, Self-reliance, and Innovation, but his actions during the two terms were in total contradiction to his stated political rhetoric. In brief, whatever we Tibetans have so painstakingly achieved in terms of the rule of law and democratization, Lobsang Sangay with his egoistic leadership have pretty much squandered everything and brought us to this current state of a polarized exile society.
Penpa Tsering is nothing but a victim like the rest of us. He is not destroying our exile society but trying to make it more just and accountable. We can rise above cynicism and partisanship, and let us not kill the messenger!
The news about the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission directing the Kashag to apologise to plaintiff Penpa Tsering by 27 December, failing which the rights of the Kashag members to stand in elections and to vote would be withheld, will further strengthen the Tibetan people’s faith in the Tibetan judiciary.
This new development in “Case No. 20” follows the Kashag’s failure to apologise, through all official Tibetan news outlets, after the Justice Commission led by the then Chief Justice Commissioner Kargyu Dhondup on 14th October acquitted Penpa Tsering from all 10 charges that Lobsang Sangay-led Kashag had formulated in their decision to remove him as HH the Dalai Lama’s Representative for North America.
One cannot imagine how much the Kashag’s undermining of the Justice Commission’s decision would have hurt His Holiness. The big question is, does His Holiness know what is going on? Has he been briefed by those who surround him? If not, the Tibetan people should all take responsibility of making sure that he knows what is going on either through telling him directly during public audiences or through Indian and foreign media – this is when people around him panic because they will be caught off guard.
Sikyong Lobsang Sangay is fond of publicity, and in front of His Holiness saying that he will follow the wishes of His Holiness. If so, how about following His Holiness’ advice on respecting Democracy? He and all these timid Kalons should hang their head in shame. All they have done is undermine and destroy the democracy that His Holiness has given to the Tibetan people.
Lobsang Dakpa is also member of Chitue, I really do not know whether the present Chitue can act as Kashag lawyer. Please educate me on our Constitution. It already shows the bias towards the Kashag during the Chitue meeting. Chitue should be neutral and check the Kashag and Administration duties.
Secondly, it is shameful of Lobsang Dakpa!! For the sake of Tibetan Unity, LS and Kashag should follow the verdict. Otherwise leave the Administration!!!!!
My faith in the Tibetan Justice System is more than ever. We have a real DEMOCRACY. Thank you. No one is above the law.