"...The Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Myanmar?s third and current constitution (?the Constitution”), was adopted following a referendum on 10 May 2008, held just eight days after Cyclone Nargis, the most devastating natural disaster in Myanmar?s history. There was little or no public participation in the production of the text of the Constitution; indeed the proposed text was published just one month before the referendum and was unavailable to a large part of the electorate.... 2. However, Myanmar has recently taken a significant step towards participatory democracy by inviting public views on the amendment of the Constitution. In July 2013 the Joint Committee for Reviewing the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (?the Committee”) was established with the aims of: guaranteeing the perpetuation, peace, stability and development of the Republic; bringing eternal peace to all national races and ethnic people by bringing unity between them; and carrying on democratic reforms for building the state. One of the Committee?s first actions was, on October 3 2013, to announce a nationwide consultation exercise aimed at garnering advice from a broad range of political parties, organizations and individuals as to how the Constitution might be amended. This exercise ran until December 31 2013. The Committee has stated that it received 28,247 letters in response.... 3. During the consultation period, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law (?the Bingham Centre”) took part in a project to encourage participation by the citizens of Myanmar in that consultation exercise. The Bingham Centre assisted in many well-attended workshops across different parts of Myanmar between October and December 2013. As a result of these workshops, over 500 people submitted responses to the Committee. A summary of the Bingham Centre?s experience of people?s priorities for reform is set out below.... 4. However, the immediate priority for reform identified by the overwhelming majority of delegates at the numerous workshops was to amend the onerous procedure for amending the Constitution, without which reform is likely to be extremely difficult. This paper seeks to put those popular concerns into context by comparing to other constitutions around the world the three elements of this procedure, which, in our view, combine to make it so onerous. Those three elements are:..."