Bhutan Bar Examination common mistakes
Bhutan Bar Examination · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering constitutional questions by reciting the text of the Constitution without applying it to the facts, e.g., stating that Article 7 guarantees equality but never testing whether the impugned administrative action creates an unjustified classification.
Candidates memorise constitutional articles as isolated provisions and treat the paper as a recall test, often because the bare text is the most accessible study material and they never practise issue-spotting from a fact pattern.
What to do instead
For every constitutional question, write a short structure before answering: identify the right or principle engaged, cite the precise Article and clause, state the test the provision or the courts have developed, apply it to each fact, and reach a conclusion. Practise with past fact patterns and time yourself writing only the application paragraph.
Confusing the Civil Procedure tiers and routes: filing an appeal or revision in the wrong court, missing that a particular order is appealable only with leave, or misstating the limitation period for an application.
Procedure is learned as a list of stages rather than as a decision tree, and candidates rarely map a remedy to its forum, its triggering order, and its limitation period together.
What to do instead
Build a one-page remedy map for each procedural step: order or decree involved, forum of first instance, appellate or revisional forum, whether leave is required, and limitation period. Redraw it from memory weekly and check it against the statute.
Treating every criminal question as a substantive offence question and omitting procedural safeguards, such as the right to be informed of the grounds of arrest, production before a court within the prescribed period, or the consequences of an unlawful search.
Offence definitions are vivid and easy to remember, while procedural protections feel like background detail, so candidates under-allocate time to them and lose the marks attached to fair-trial issues.
What to do instead
When a criminal fact pattern appears, run a fixed checklist before writing: arrest, detention and remand, charge, trial fairness, evidence admissibility, and appeal. Note the procedural point alongside each substantive offence identified.
Identifying an issue in a contract problem but failing to complete the analytical chain, for example asserting that an offer was accepted without addressing communication of acceptance, consideration, capacity, or the effect of a vitiating factor.
Candidates jump to the conclusion they intuitively prefer and then write a conclusion-first answer, skipping the elements that the examiner is actually awarding marks for.
What to do instead
Use an element-by-element template for formation, validity, performance, breach, and remedies. For each element, state the rule, apply the facts, and expressly note where facts are missing and what further information would change the outcome.
Discussing land and family issues in general social terms rather than through the applicable statutory framework, for example answering a land-transfer problem without addressing registration, ownership documentation, or the requirements for a valid transfer.
These topics attract moral and customary commentary, and candidates substitute intuition and general principle for the specific statutory provisions and procedural requirements that carry the marks.
What to do instead
Anchor every answer in the governing statute and the registering authority's procedure. For land questions, structure around title, mode of transfer, documentation, registration, and consequences of non-registration. For family questions, structure around the applicable law on marriage, matrimonial property, and succession.
Citing case law by name without extracting the principle, or citing a case that stands for a different proposition than the one asserted.
Candidates collect case names late in preparation and deploy them as decoration, without having read enough of the reasoning to know what the case actually decides.
What to do instead
Maintain a case card for each leading case with three lines: facts in one sentence, the principle in one sentence, and the situation in which it applies. Cite only cases on your cards, and always follow the name with the principle in your own words.
Treating administrative law as a subset of constitutional law, so that a problem about a licensing refusal or a disciplinary decision is answered with fundamental-rights language instead of grounds of judicial review such as illegality, irrationality, procedural impropriety, or failure to give reasons.
The overlap between the two subjects encourages candidates to reuse constitutional notes, and administrative law's discrete grounds of review are less frequently drilled.
What to do instead
Learn the grounds of review as a closed checklist and apply each one in turn to the administrative decision in the facts. Practise writing a short review opinion that identifies the decision, the decision-maker's power, the ground of challenge, and the remedy sought.
Answering evidence questions by naming a rule, such as hearsay or the burden of proof, without stating the exception, the standard applicable in the particular proceeding, or how the rule operates on the specific item of evidence in the facts.
Evidence rules are stated as slogans in revision notes, and candidates reproduce the slogan without the qualifications that determine the outcome.
What to do instead
For each evidence issue, write four lines: the item of evidence, the general rule, the applicable exception or qualification, and the effect on admissibility or weight. Drill this with short hypotheticals rather than long essays.
Drafting a pleading, contract clause, or conveyance that is internally inconsistent or unenforceable on its face, for example mixing parties' capacities, omitting operative verbs, leaving blanks in essential terms, or using recitals that contradict the operative clauses.
Candidates write drafting answers as prose descriptions of what a document should contain rather than producing the document itself, and they do not read their own draft back for consistency.
What to do instead
Produce the actual instrument in the answer, using a fixed skeleton of parties, recitals, operative clauses, boilerplate, and execution block. Reserve five minutes at the end to read the draft as a stranger would, checking every defined term, date, and cross-reference.
Handling ethics questions by asserting that counsel must act honourably without identifying the specific duty engaged, the conflicting duty, the disclosure or withdrawal obligation, and the practical step counsel should take.
Ethics is often revised last as a list of virtues, so candidates have no framework for resolving a conflict between a client's instructions and a duty to the court or to third parties.
What to do instead
Learn the core duties as a named set: competence, confidentiality, conflict of interest, candour to the court, and handling of client money. For each ethics scenario, identify the duty engaged, the competing duty, the required course of action, and the consequence of breach, and answer in that order.