Rule of Law - Burma/Myanmar-specific

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Title: Asian Human Rights Commission
Description: Several hundred documents on Burma. "The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) was founded in 1986 by a prominent group of jurists and human rights activists in Asia. The AHRC is an independent, non-governmental body, which seeks to promote greater awareness and realisation of human rights in the Asian region, and to mobilise Asian and international public opinion to obtain relief and redress for the victims of human rights violations. AHRC promotes civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. AHRC endeavours to achieve the following objectives stated in the Asian Charter "Many Asian states have guarantees of human rights in their constitutions, and many of them have ratified international instruments on human rights. However, there continues to be a wide gap between rights enshrined in these documents and the abject reality that denies people their rights. Asian states must take urgent action to implement the human rights of their citizens and residents... " Search for Burma and/or go to Asian Countries/Burma. Links, Urgent appeals.
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission, Asian Legal Resource Centre
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Asian Human Rights Commission - Search results for Myanmar
Description: Several hundred reports and urgent appeals on legal events in Burma/Myanmar, including restrictions on lawyers and unjust conduct of legal proceedings.
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-22
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma/Myanmar laws in need of amendment (texts and commentary) - link
Description: Link to an OBL sub-section
Source/publisher: Online Burma/Myanmar Library
Date of entry/update: 2016-05-17
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Title: Myanmar Junta Extends Martial Law
Sub-title: Military Greenlights Abuses; Denies Fair Trial Rights
Description: "On February 22, Myanmar’s junta announced martial law orders for three additional townships in Sagaing Region, after expanding martial law in 37 townships elsewhere in the country earlier this month. A total of 50 townships are now under martial law in Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, and Mon States, as well as in Yangon and Mandalay Regions. The three townships in Myanmar’s northwest now fall under the executive and judicial jurisdiction of regional military commander Maj. Gen. Than Htike, who has been sanctioned by the European Union for serious human rights violations, including excessive use of force and an attack on a school in Depayin township in September 2022 that killed 11 children. The Myanmar junta’s application of martial law permits a disproportionate, overbroad and open-ended response. It allows for even further repression of basic rights to free expression, peaceful assembly, and association. In essence, these martial law orders all but guarantee that ongoing military abuses remain unchecked and those responsible unaccountable. Under martial law, legal proceedings held in military tribunals against alleged coup opponents – closed-door hearings without adequate opportunity to present a defense – deny defendants any semblance of a fair trial. Defendants on trial before military tribunals face almost certain conviction regardless of the evidence against them. Neither the public, human rights monitors, or foreign diplomats have access to the trials, and defendants have no right of appeal. Since the February 2021 coup, military tribunals have sentenced more than 100 people to death, including 41 tried in absentia. For two years, Myanmar’s junta has brutalized a population that has bravely opposed military rule. So long as martial law remains in place, it’s clear the military has no intention of changing course. Concerned governments need to hold the junta to account. Member states of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in particular Indonesia as chair of ASEAN, should do more to press Myanmar’s military to end its abuses and restore the civilian democratic government..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: 2023-02-27
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Four Myanmar Parties Register for Junta Election
Description: "Despite widespread opposition to the Myanmar junta’s proposed general election, four political parties have re-registered with the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC), as required by the new Political Parties Registration Law. The military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), Federal Democratic Party (FDP), Myanmar People’s Democratic Party (MPD) and Union Democracy Party (UDP) re-registered this month. The USDP, FDP and MPD were among 34 parties that met military chief Min Aung Hlaing ahead of the 2020 general election. The party leaders sought the commander-in-chief’s assurance that he would intervene if voting was deemed unfair. They also called for then UEC chairman U Hla Thein to be replaced, saying they do not trust him because he was appointed by the National League for Democracy (NLD). Min Aung Hlaing’s coup came three months after the NLD’s landslide victory. FDP leaders Daw Than Than Nu and Daw Cho Cho Kyaw Neyin accepted honorary titles on behalf of their fathers from Min Aung Hlaing in January in Naypyitaw. Daw Than Than Nu was the daughter of U Nu, prime minister under the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League government after independence from British rule. Daw Cho Cho Nyein is a daughter of U Kyaw Nyein, U Nu’s deputy. The United Democratic Party, known as the Rose party because of its logo, was dissolved ahead of the 2020 election after its chairman Michael Kyaw Myint was accused of money laundering, flouting business laws and fleeing an earlier prison sentence handed down under a previous military regime. The UDP was dissolved after it failed to field three candidates – the legal minimum – in the 2020 general election. The Political Parties Registration Law, according to observers, favors the USDP, which was formed by ex-generals. The law requires parties to re-register with the junta’s UEC within 60 days or be disbanded. Under the law, parties running nationally must recruit at least 100,000 members within 90 days of registration and have offices in at least half of Myanmar’s 330 townships within six months. They must also deposit 100 million kyats with a state-owned bank. Sai Leik, general secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, told The Irrawaddy, that the law will ensure the USDP secures power and the military maintains its grip on power. There are 91 political parties in Myanmar and all are now required to re-register or be dissolved. The NLD says it will not recognize any junta election but the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, People’s Pioneer Party led by the junta’s social welfare minister Daw Thet Thet Khine, Arakan Front Party and other parties close to the junta are expected to re-register. In the 2020 election, 87 of 91 registered parties contested the election and 19 won parliamentary seats. The civilian National Unity Government, ethnic armed organizations and other pro-democracy forces have called any junta election a sham. Malaysia has urged fellow ASEAN members to reject any election held by Myanmar’s regime..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2023-01-15
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Junta Reshuffle Shows Nepotism Rules in Myanmar
Description: "A reshuffle of the regime’s cabinet on the two-year anniversary of the coup earlier this month saw the junta boss offering “jobs for the boys”. Most of the new appointees are ex-generals while some are also friends of Min Aung Hlaing. Nepotism has been a feature of Min Aung Hlaing’s leadership since he became military chief in 2011, with critics condemning a promotion policy that eschews merit in favor of connections. He appointed former Brigadier-General Khin Yi as immigration minister following the coup, before installing him late last year as head of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), a position critical for Min Aung Hlaing’s planned poll. The junta boss is related to Khin Yi by marriage. Min Aung Hlaing had also appointed former Colonel Wunna Maung Lwin as foreign minister. The ex-colonel’s wife Daw Lin Lin Tin is cousin to the junta’s chief’s wife Kyu Kyu Hla. Wunna Maung Lwin was replaced earlier this month after the regime suffered increasing diplomatic isolation since the coup. Normally, he would have been forced to step down after his efforts failed to woo western countries including the US. But Min Aung Hlaing has reserved a seat for his relative by marriage in the regime’s governing body, the State Administration Council. Another nepotistic appointment is former Major-General Maung Maung Ohn, who became the Information Minister. His daughter Ei Moh Moh Aung is close friends with the junta chief’s daughter, Khin Thiri Thet Min. New foreign minister U Wunna Maung Lwin was replaced by U Than Swe, who was part of the Defense Services Academy (DSA) 16th intake. He retired as a colonel in 2000. Than Swe was a long-time Myanmar diplomat, serving as ambassador to the United States under the previous regime’s State Peace and Development Council and ex-general Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government. As ambassador, he arranged for President Thein Sein’s visit to the US in 2012. U Thein Sein was accompanied on the trip by President’s Office minister U Aung Min, U Soe Thane, and immigration minister U Khin Yi. The Burmese delegation visited the Washington D.C. headquarters of Radio Free Asia, where U Aung Min gave an interview stressing the importance of US support. Observers interpret Than Swe’s appointment as an attempt to rekindle ties with western countries including the US as the regime loses ground on the diplomatic front. Former military intelligence officer U Aung Ling Htut, who has been living in the US, believes the regime will find it almost impossible to re-engage with the US, partly because it has no intermediaries like the previous military regime did, and partly because the junta has become too close to Russia. Than Swe was assigned to lead the country’s anti-corruption commission last year before he was made the foreign minister on Feb. 1. As the anti-graft body’s chair, he is believed to have played a role in prosecuting civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of corruption. Generals become ministers, chief ministers Former Brig-Gen Aung Thaw became minister of hotels and tourism in the reshuffle. He was a classmate of Min Aung Hlaing in the 19th intake of the DSA. He retired from the Navy after reaching the rank of Brig-General. He served as the deputy defense minister in the U Thein Sein government. He contested the 2020 general election in Yangon’s Cocokyun Township on a USDP ticket. He became Myanmar-Russia Friendship Association chairman following the 2021 coup and has accompanied the junta boss on his Russia trips. With no known experience in tourism, it will be interesting to see how he attempts to revive an industry devastated by the double impact of COVID-19 and the coup. Perhaps he has just been tasked with wooing Russian tourists to Myanmar. Four former lieutenant-generals who retired after reaching pensionable age following the coup have been appointed to senior positions in the Feb. 1 reshuffle, with three becoming chief ministers – of Kayah (Karenni) and Shan states and Ayeyarwady Region – and one becoming a Union minister. The latter is new Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Minister U Min Naung. He joined the 66th intake of Officer Training School before serving as chief of Eastern Central Command, chief of Bureau of Special Operations 4, and Military Inspector General. Following the coup, he was appointed secretary of the junta’s National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee. The Agriculture and Irrigation Ministry became notorious for ‘fringe benefits’ under the previous junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Since then, its ministers and directors-general have amassed huge wealth, with one director-general rumored to have become as rich as a crony and able to lend money to banks. The new Shan State chief minister, U Aung Zaw Aye, is a former lieutenant-general who led the Bureau of Special Operations 2. He oversaw military operations in Kayah and Shan state after the coup. Former Lt-Gen Zaw Myo Tin and former Lt-Gen air defense chief Tin Maung Win became chief ministers of Kayah State and Ayeyarwady Region respectively. Former Col Htein Lin, who served as Rakhine State security and border affairs minister in the U Thein Sein government, was appointed Rakhine State chief minister in the Feb. 1 reshuffle. In the two years since the coup, nearly 1,000 military personnel have been transferred to government departments. And more are expected to fill the ministries as military rule continues. There will also be more generals in the leadership. And there will undoubtedly be more nepotistic appointments and promotions for relatives and friends of Min Aung Hlaing and his family..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2023-02-13
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-13
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Title: ၂၀၂၃ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုလုပ်ရပ်ကြောင့် ထိခိုက်သေဆုံး နစ်နာခဲ့ရသောစာရင်းနှင့် မီးလောင်ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသော အိုးအိမ်များစာရင်းကို အများပြည်သူသို့ တင်ပြအစီရင်ခံအပ်ပါသည်။
Description: "တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊ တရားဥပဒေစိုးမိုးရေးနှင့်အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းရေးကာလ တရားမျှတမှု ဆိုင်ရာဦးစီးဌာနသည် စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုဖြစ်စဉ်အတွင်း ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့် စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ၊ လူသားမျိုးနွယ်စုအပေါ်ကျူးလွန်သည့်အမှုများ၊လူမျိုးတုံးသတ် ဖြတ်မှုများ၊ အပါအဝင် အရပ်ရပ်သော ဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာ ချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို စာရင်းကောက်ယူ မှတ်တမ်းပြုစုလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ကျူးလွန်မှုများ၊ ချိုးဖောက်မှုများအပေါ် အမှန်တရားရှာဖွေဖော်ထုတ်ခြင်း၊ တရားမျှတမှု ရရှိအောင်ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း၊ ပြန်လည်ကုစားပေးခြင်း၊ ဖြစ်ရပ်ဆိုးများထပ်မံမဖြစ်ပွားစေရေးအတွက် အဖွဲ့အစည်းဆိုင်ရာပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲခြင်း စသည့် လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များကို ဆောင်ရွက်ရန်စီမံ လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ပြည်သူများအနေဖြင့်လည်းကောင်း၊ တော်လှန်ရေးအစုအဖွဲ့များအနေဖြင့်လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအနေဖြင့်လည်းကောင်း အာဏာသိမ်းဖြစ်စဉ်အတွင်း ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့် ပြစ်မှု ကျူးလွန်မှုများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ၏ သတင်းအချက်အလက် မှတ်တမ်းများကို ပေးပို့ကြပါရန်နှင့် ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်ပေးကြပါရန် ဖိတ်ခေါ်အပ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၃ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုလုပ်ရပ်ကြောင့် ထိခိုက်သေဆုံး နစ်နာခဲ့ရသောစာရင်းနှင့် မီးလောင်ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသော အိုးအိမ်များစာရင်းကို အများပြည်သူသို့ တင်ပြအစီရင်ခံအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Justice - NUG
Date of publication: 2023-02-05
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Title: Joint Statement by International Election Experts and Organizations on Myanmar
Description: "We, the undersigned organizations specializing in election observation, electoral and democracy assistance, committed to the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation1 and to upholding the integrity and credibility of such endeavours, denounce and distance ourselves from the sham “election” that the illegal and illegitimate military junta of Myanmar, the State Administrative Council (SAC), and the illegitimate “Union Election Commission” it has established, are currently planning for later this year. We also express an urgent request to the international community to deny the SAC any technical, material, or symbolic support for such sham elections. We encourage UN Member States to join us and make their opposition to the junta’s electoral exercise widely known, including through individual and joint statements, and resolutions at the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Human Rights Council. The Myanmar junta has been systematically and massively violating the human rights of the people to such a degree that the free expression of their will cannot be ensured. It is impossible to hold a genuine election under current conditions in Myanmar, which include the arrest, detention, torture, and execution of leaders of the most widely supported political party and other politicians and civic activists; as well as the harassment, jailing and torture of journalists. Those who criticize the coup and the military junta and protect the internationally recognized valid elections of 2020 are considered criminals and are persecuted. It should also be noted that 21 officials from the legitimate Union Election Commission are still being held in detention following the coup as a result of their involvement in the 2020 elections.2 Genuine democratic elections cannot be achieved unless human rights and fundamental freedoms can be exercised, including freedom of expression, assembly, and association, as was largely the case in 2020. The evidence is overwhelming that the SAC denies the exercise of any of these freedoms. Genuine democratic elections are an expression of sovereignty, which belongs to the people of a country, the free expression of whose will provides the basis for the authority and legitimacy of government. The SAC can make no claim to democratic legitimacy, i.e., representing the will of the people as expressed through elections. Our organizations are committed to conducting systematic, comprehensive, and accurate gathering of information concerning the laws, processes and institutions related to the conduct of elections. We assess factors concerning the overall electoral environment. We analyze this information impartially and draw conclusions about the character of electoral processes based on the highest standards for accuracy of information and impartiality of analysis. Where possible, we offer recommendations for improving the integrity and effectiveness of electoral processes. No recommendations that we could offer on this sham “election” could cure the falsity of the process other than for the SAC to follow the call of the United Nations General Assembly to “to respect the will of the people as freely expressed by the results of the general election of 8 November 2020, to end the state of emergency, to respect all human rights of all the people of Myanmar and to allow the sustained democratic transition of Myanmar.” The implementation of a sham “election” will not bring stability in Myanmar. It will only contribute to increasing violence and polarization, worsen the crisis caused by the military coup, and further threats to regional and international stability and security..."
Source/publisher: Asian Network for Free Elections, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute
Date of publication: 2023-01-31
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf
Size: 143.77 KB 154.93 KB
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Title: Two more years of atrocities in Myanmar
Description: "Geneva, 1 February 2023 – Today marks exactly two years since the Myanmar military sent tanks into the streets in an effort to remove the elected government. Over this time, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of serious international crimes systematically committed across the country. We have collected credible evidence documenting the commission of an array of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, unlawful imprisonment, and deportation or forcible transfer. We are analyzing this evidence and preparing case files to hold perpetrators of these crimes responsible so that they will one day face justice. There is strong evidence that thousands of people have been unlawfully imprisoned, and that they have been subject to torture and other forms of physical and mental abuse, as well as rape and other forms of sexual violence. These incidents are widespread and systematic, suggesting that they are not isolated events but rather the implementation of an organizational policy. There is also compelling evidence of widespread crimes committed in the various armed conflicts that are ongoing in Myanmar. Civilians and civilian objects, such as residential homes, have been repeatedly and intentionally targeted or subject to indiscriminate attack. These attacks are war crimes, and they enable perpetrators to commit other serious international crimes such as forcible transfer and forcible displacement, often accompanied by the burning of civilian homes in villages considered supportive of armed groups. The Mechanism is focusing its investigations on specific incidents where the impact on victims is the most severe, and we are looking at crimes committed by both security forces and armed groups. Through our analysis of interview statements, documentation, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery, and social media material, we are finding evidence showing who is responsible for these crimes. Our investigations are constrained by the lack of cooperation by the Myanmar military authorities who are in a position to provide highly relevant and essential information. Multiple requests to them for information and access to the country have so far gone unanswered. Nevertheless, we have collected substantial, credible and direct information from numerous sources, including survivors, eyewitnesses and defectors who have provided crucial information about the crimes and the individuals responsible. We are inspired by the Myanmar people’s courage in sharing information with us, and we have systems in place to keep their evidence and testimonies confidential and secure. Just as we are sharing evidence with those working on ongoing cases concerning the Rohingya at the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and in Argentina, we are also preparing evidence that can be shared with national, regional or international courts who will one day prosecute those responsible for crimes committed since 1 February 2021. Perpetrators should be aware that serious international crimes have no statute of limitations. This means that there is no time limit for perpetrators to be prosecuted. The road to justice may be long, but the Mechanism is preserving and analyzing the evidence now so that it will be immediately available for use by relevant judicial authorities in the future. The cycle of impunity will end, and there will one day be accountability and justice for these heinous crimes. Information on how to communicate securely and confidentially with the Mechanism can be found at https://iimm.un.org/contact-us/confidential-and-sensitive-communications/ The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM or Mechanism) was created by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and analyze evidence of the most serious international crimes and other violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011. It aims to facilitate justice and accountability by preserving and organizing this evidence and preparing case files for use in future prosecutions of those responsible in national, regional and international courts. For more information visit https://iimm.un.org/ or contact [email protected]..."
Source/publisher: Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Date of publication: 2023-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: TWO YEARS AFTER COUP: CONDEMN MYANMAR JUNTA’S PLAN FOR SHAM ELECTION
Description: "Today marks the second anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar that took place on 1 February 2021. The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) continues to stand in unwavering solidarity with the people of Myanmar who have suffered greatly under the brutal regime and condemns the junta’s plan for a sham election. We remember those who have lost their lives or freedoms in pursuit of democracy. We continue to vehemently condemn the military junta’s flagrant violations of human rights, including the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, the arbitrary imprisonment of political leaders, activists, government officials and journalists, the infringement of fundamental freedoms, and the atrocities committed against civilians. As the junta plans to hold a sham election this year to legitimize its rule, we categorically denounce this so-called election as illegal and illegitimate. Genuine, free, and fair democratic elections cannot take place in Myanmar unless fundamental human rights and freedoms are upheld, which is currently not the case in Myanmar. The junta holds no legitimate position nor rightful authority to conduct any elections, and any outcome from such an exercise will not represent the will of the people. The new Political Parties Registration Law introduced by the junta in late January makes it virtually impossible for most parties to stand any chance in the sham election. All parties must re-register within two months or face immediate dissolution, and those intending to contest nationwide must recruit 100,000 members within 90 days, establish offices in at least half of the country’s 330 townships and be able to contest in half of all constituencies. It is now even more evident that the draconian conditions eliminate all chances of a democratic election. The international community must acknowledge that any election held by the junta is nothing but a sham, and will be illegitimate and invalid. It is imperative that the international community takes further measures to restore democracy in Myanmar if no positive progress is achieved. The plight of the people in Myanmar demands the collective efforts of the international community, including ASEAN and its new chair Indonesia, to guarantee that they are able to enjoy their democratic rights and liberties without fear of repression..."
Source/publisher: Asian Network for Free Elections
Date of publication: 2023-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Statement Condemning the Aerial Bombardment by the Military Council Causing Many Civilian Casualties, Blatantly Violating International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law
Description: "1. International Humanitarian Law, which also governs non-international armed conflict, forbids the belligerent parties to attack non-military objectives. International Law defines military objectives as follows: Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions Article 52(2) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I provides: In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage. Hague Rules of Air Warfare Article 24 (1) of the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare provides: “Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.” 2. In spite of the fact that whatever aerial bombing must be carried out strictly targeting only military objectives, the belligerent party must calculate the possible civilian casualties that are likely to result due to the attack. If there are civilians in the immediate vicinity, the belligerent party must refrain from such aerial attack since it could cause many casualties. 3. On October 23, 2022, the military council conducted an airstrike targeting an outdoor concert being held to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of KIO in A Nang Pa village in Kachin State, causing hundreds of casualties, mostly civilians. The military had a clear knowledge about civilians1 participating in the celebration since the access to the village was controlled by its check points. As such, the concert clearly wasn’t military objective and thus the attack is a blatant war crime. Moreover, the patterns of the junta’s aggressive operations clearly indicate the commission of crimes against humanity because the attack was widespread and systematic, inducing fear among the population. 4. Aerial attacks using fighter jets cannot be carried out without the authorization from the central command, Office of the Commander in Chief. Following the airstrike in A Nang Pa village, the junta’s information team reported that the airstrike was conducted in compliance with the Rules of Engagement. Therefore, the command for carrying out the bombing came directly from the central command and is planned and systematic. 2 Min Aung Hlaing and his top generals3 are therefore directly responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 5. Now is the time for all political and legal entities, ethnic resistance groups and CSOs, both at home and abroad, to unitedly put all efforts to seek justice for the victims by firmly adhering to the principle of substantive justice and to restore the rule of law in the country. The impunity, primarily enjoyed by successive military perpetrators, must be ended once and for all. 6. The responsibility for such brutal crimes also extends to those so-called ethnic resistance organizations that entered a ceasefire agreement with the junta under the failed NCA or, otherwise, to the political parties that are preparing to run for office in the announced juntacontrolled elections, thereby knowingly supporting the resurgence of the 2008 Constitution and the military dictatorship. Also, the United Wa State Party should reconsider its position in relation to the junta’s crimes. 7. Legal Aid Network calls on the above-mentioned organizations to review their political determinations and unanimously combine forces under the principle of the rule of law, so that the military perpetrators including Min Aung Hlaing and his top accomplices can be brought before international justice mechanisms and hold accountable for their evident and consistent commission of international crimes..."
Source/publisher: Legal Aid Network
Date of publication: 2022-10-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 584.4 KB
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Title: အရပ်သားလူထုကို အမြောက်အများသေကြေပျက်စီးစေသည့် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက် ကျူးလွန်မှုအား နိုင်ငံတကာစစ်ဥပဒေ နှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဥပဒေများရှုထောင့်မှနေ၍ ပြင်းထန်စွာကန့်ကွက်ကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေငြာခြင်း။
Description: "၁။ ပြည်တွင်းစစ်ပွဲများတွင်ပါ သက်ရောက်မှုရှိသော နိုင်ငံတကာ စစ်ဥပဒေအရ ဘက်နှစ်ဘက် စစ်ဆင်တိုက်ခိုက်နေစဉ် စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်ကိုသာ တိုက်ခိုက်ခွင့်ရှိသည်။ စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်အားအောက်ပါအတိုင်း ဖွင့်ဆိုထားသည်။ နိုင်ငံတကာစစ်ဥပဒေ (ခေါ်) ဂျီနီဗာကွန်ဗင်းရှင်း1 နိုင်ငံတကာစစ်ဥပဒေ (ခေါ်) ဂျီနီဗာကွန်ဗင်းရှင်း၏ နောက်ဆက်တွဲစာချုပ် (၁)၊ အပိုဒ် ၅၂ အပိုဒ်ခွဲ (၂) တွင် အရာဝတ္ထု၊ အဆောက်အအုံတို့နှင့်စပ်လျဉ်းပြီး စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ် (Military Objective) ဟူသည်မှာ ၎င်းအရာဝတ္ထု၊ အဆောက်အအုံ၏ သဘာဝအရသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ တည်နေရာအရသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ ၎င်း၏ရည်ရွယ်ချက်အရသော်လည်းကောင်း သို့မဟုတ် အသုံးချပါက စစ်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုကို ထိရောက်စွာ အကျိုးပြုနိုင်ခြင်းရှိရမည်။ ထိုအရာဝတ္ထု၊ အဆောက်အအုံအား အလုံးစုံသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ တစိတ်တပိုင်း သော်လည်းကောင်း ဖျက်ဆီးပစ်ပါက သို့တည်းဟုတ် သိမ်းပိုက်ပါက သို့တည်းမဟုတ် ဖြိုချဖျက်ဆီး လိုက်ပါက အဆိုပါအချိန်အတောအတွင်း တိကျသည့်စစ်ရေးအသာစီးရမှု ရှိနေရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ လေကြောင်းတိုက်ပွဲများဆိုင်ရာ ဟိဂ်စည်းမျဉ်း2 ၁၉၂၃ လေကြောင်းတိုက်ပွဲများဆိုင်ရာ ဟိဂ်စည်းမျဉ်း၏ အပိုဒ် ၂၄ အပိုဒ်ခွဲ (၁) တွင်ဖော်ပြထား သည်မှာ လေကြောင်းမှ ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်ရာတွင် စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်ကို ဦးတည်တိုက်ခိုက်မှသာလျှင် တရားဝင် ဖြစ်သည်။ ဆိုလိုသည်မှာ ပစ်မှတ်တခုကို တိုက်ခိုက်ပျက်စီးအောင်ပြုလုပ်ရာတွင် ပြုလုပ်သည့်အဖွဲ့အတွက် တိကျသေချာသည့် စစ်ရေးအကျိုးအမြတ် ရှိနေရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ၂။ စစ်လေယာဉ်ဖြင့် ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်ရာတွင် စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်ကို တိုက်စေဦး၊ ဗုံး၏ကျရောက် ပေါက်ကွဲမည့်နေရာနှင့် အရပ်သားလူထုများရှိနေမည့်နေရာကို တွက်ချက်ရသည်။ စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်ကို တိုက်ခိုက်သော ဗုံး၏ပြင်းအားကြောင့် ပြန့်ထွက်သွားမည့် အကွာအဝေးနေရာတွင် အရပ်သားလူထု ရှိနေလျင် အဆိုပါ စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်အား တိုက်ခိုက်ခွင့်မရှိ။ ၃။ စစ်ကောင်စီက အောက်တိုဘာ ၂၃ ရက်ည ကချင်ပြည်နယ် ဖားကန့ြ်မို့နယ် အနန်ပါကျေးရွာတွင ် ကေအိုင်အို အထိမ်းအမှတ်နေ့အကြို လူထုအခမ်းအနားကျင်းပနေစဉ် လေယာဉ်ဖြင့် ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်မှု ကြောင့် သေဆုံးဒဏ်ရာရသူ ရာဂဏန်းနီးပါးရှိခဲ့သည်။ အရပ်သားလူထုများသည် အခမ်းအနားပြုလုပ်သည့် အဆိုပါနေရာသို့ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ဂိတ်စခန်းကိုဖြတ်ပြီး သွားရောက်ရသည့် နေရာဖြစ်၍ စစ်ကောင်စီတပ် အနေဖြင့် အရပ်သားလူထုများ ရောပြွန်းလျက်ရှိကြောင်းသိပါလျက်3နှင့် စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်အလျဉ်း မဟုတ်သည်ကို တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်သောကြောင့် စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုကို အတိအလင်း ကျူးလွန်ရာရောက်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် အဆိုပါသတ်ဖြတ်မှုအား တနိုင်ငံလုံးကို အကြောက်တရားဖန်တည်းသည့်အခြေအနေကို သက်ရောက်စေရေးအတွက် ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့်နှင့် စနစ်တကျ (widespread and systematic) ကျူးလွန်ခြင်းဖြစ်သဖြင့် လူသားဆန့က် ျင်ပြစ်မှု (Crimes against humanity) လည်းမြောက်သည်။ ၄။ ဂျက်လေယာဉ်များဖြင့် ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်မှုသည် အောက်ခြေတပ်ဖွဲ့တခုခုက ၎င်းတို့၏ သဘောဆန္ဒ သက်သက်မျှဖြင့် ကျူးလွန်ခြင်းမဟုတ်။ ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်၏ အမိန့် (သို့မဟုတ်) အတည်ပြုချက် ဖြင့်သာ စစ်ဆင်ရေးဆောင်ရွက်ရသည်။ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်အရ ဤစစ်ဆင်ရေးကို ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်ရုံးကနေ တိုက်ရိုက်အစီအစဉ်တကျ ဖော်ဆောင်ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်ကို တွေ့ရသည်။4 သို့ဖြစ်၍ ဤနိုင်ငံတကာရာဇဝတ်မှုကြီး နှစ်ခုအတွက် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်ခေါင်းဆောင်သည့် ထိပ်ပိုင်းစစ်အရာရှိ5 ကြီးများအားလုံးတွင် ပထမဆုံးအနေဖြင့် တိုက်ရိုက်တာဝန်ရှိသည်။ ၅။ ယင်းသို့သော ဆိုးဝါးပြင်းထန်လွန်းသည့် နိုင်ငံတကာပြစ်မှုကြီးများကို အဆက်မပြတ်ကျူးလွန်နေသော စစ်အာဏာရှင်များအား ဥပဒေစိုးမိုးရေးအခြေခံအရ ပြစ်မှုကျူးလွန်သူကို အပြစ်ပေးကာ တရားမျှတမှု ရှာဖွေရမည့် (Substantive Justice) မူက ို ပြတ်ပြတ်သားသားကိုင်စွဲလျက ် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်နှင့ ် အပေါင်းပါ စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များအား အရေးယူအပြစ်ပေးနိုင်ဖို့ ကြိုးပမ်းဖော်ဆောင်ရန် နိုင်ငံတကာ နှင့် ပြည်တွင်း အင်အားစုများအားလုံးတွင် တာဝန်ရှိပါသည်။ ၆။ တနိုင်ငံလုံးအပစ်ရပ်စာချုပ်ကို အခြေပြု၍ဖြစ်စေ၊ အခြေမပြုဘဲဖြစ်စေ စစ်ကောင်စီ နှင့် အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲ မှုက ို ပုံသဏ္ဍာန်မျိုးစုံဖြင့် အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ခဲ့ကြသည့ ် တိုင်းရင်းသား ခုခံစစ်ဆင်အဖွဲ့ အစည်းတချို့ နှင့် စစ်ကောင်စီက ဦးစီးကျင်းပမည့် ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲသည် ၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံကိုသာ ပြန်လည်အသက် သွင်းပြီး စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် ဆက်လက်တည်မြဲသွားလိမ့်မည် ဟူသည်ကို သိပါလျက်နှင့် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ 3 Myanmar Now: စစ်ကောင်စီ ဗုံးကြဲမှုအပေါ် KIA ပြောခွင့်ရ ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးနော်ဘူ နှင့် ဆက်သွယ်မေးမြန်းချက်။ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtynN8ZmBo 4 ဖားကန့်မြို့နယ်အတွင်း လုံခြုံရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များက လိုအပ်သည့် လုံခြုံရေးလုပ်ငန်းများအား ထိတွေ့တိုက်ခိုက်မှု ဆိုင်ရာစည်းမျဉ်း (Rules of Engagement-ROE) အတိုင်းဆောင်ရွက်။ နေပြည်တော်၊ အောက်တိုဘာ - ၂၄။ http://www.dsinfo.org/node/5381?d=1 5 မင်းအောင်လှိုင်(ကြည့် - ၁၄၂၃၂/စတသ-၁၉)၊ စိုးဝင်း (ကြည့်း - ၁၆၄၈၉/စတသ-၂၂)၊ မောင်မောင်အေး (ကြည်း - ၁၈၁၃၁/စတသ-၂၅) - ညှိနှိုင်းကွပ်ကဲရေးမှူး (ကြည်း၊ ရေ၊ လေ)၊ ထွန်းအောင် (လေ - ၁၉၈၂/ - ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် (လေ)၊ တေဇကျော် (ကြည်း - ၂၀၂၇၈/ဗသက-၇၃) - အမှတ်(၁) စစ်ဆင်ရေးအထူးအဖွဲ့မှူး။ ၀င်ရန်ပြင်ဆင်နေကြသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများ၊ အဓိကအားဖြင့် ဗမာပြည်ကွန်မြူနစ်ပါတီထံမှ အာဏာသိမ်း ကာ ဖွဲ့စည်းပေါ်ပေါက်လာသည့် ဝပြည်သွေးစည်း ညီညွတ်ရေးပါတီတို့သည်လည်း ယခုကဲ့သို့သော စစ်ကောင်စီက အလားတူဆန့်ကျင်ကျူးလွန်မှုမျိုးကို ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်းချို့ဖောက်နေမှုတွင် တာဝန်ရှိ ပါသည်။ ၇။ အဆိုပါအင်အားစုများအားလုံးသည် မိမိတို့၏ ရပ်တည်ချက်များကို ပြန်လည်သုံးသပ်ကာ ဥပဒေစိုးမိုးရေး အခြေခံကို အတိအကျကိုင်စွဲပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာအဆင့်ပြစ်မှုကြီးများ အဆက်မပြတ်ကျူးလွန် လျက်ရှိသော မင်းအောင်လှိုင်နှင့် ထိပ်ပိုင်းစစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များအားဖမ်းဆီးပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာတရားရုံးများတွင် တင်သွင်း အရေးယူနိုင်ရေးအတွက် စုပေါင်းကြိုးပမ်းကြရန် တိုက်တွန်းအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Legal Aid Network
Date of publication: 2022-10-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 562.58 KB
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Title: NUG Denounces Illegal Claim on Citizenship Status
Description: "The National Unity Government of Myanmar (NUG) condemns in the strongest possible terms the abuse of the nation’s citizenship law, in an attempt to threaten members of the NUG and prominent democracy allies of Myanmar. The junta’s effort to punish Ministers of the only legitimate government of Myanmar and prominent supporters with this cheap stunt, is not only illegal under international law, it is also forbidden under Myanmar law. Their effort to create a facade of legitimacy for this political attack is similarly illegitimate and illegal. They cite the one provision of Myanmar’s citizenship law (Article 16) that may, under narrowly defined circumstances, be used to revoke a citizen’s passport and citizenship. That case involves those who have taken up citizenship in another country permanently. NUG Acting President Duwa Lashi La, commenting on the preposterous claim by the junta said, “The only basis in law under which this attack could be defended, as it says in Article 16 and 17, is if a Myanmar citizen takes citizenship and permanent residence elsewhere. The people of our nation know that every member of my government did not seek or obtain citizenship and residence elsewhere will return to our country at the moment of victory over this blood-stained gang, the illegitimate military council they installed in an attempted coup.” Minister of Justice U Thein Oo, himself an expert on constitutional law, said, “No more obvious sign of this junta’s desperation, as they suffer setback after setback on the battlefield, could there be but this kind of nonsense. They know it is illegal. Article 17 states quite clearly that citizenship and permanent residence in another country is the only basis for such a step: It says explicitly: “NO other reason can be used for revoking citizenship.” He continued, "We will replace current citizenship law with a fairer new citizenship law." “They may be deluded into thinking this attack will demoralize me and my colleagues. It will not, and when we return to bring freedom, peace and justice to a new Myanmar, we will not attempt to revoke the junta members' citizenship. We will, however, put them on trial for their war crimes and atrocities,” he concluded..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Justice
Date of publication: 2022-04-06
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Condemns the terrorist regime's declaration of citizenship revocation - အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်မှု ရုပ်သိမ်းကြောင်း ကြေညာချက် အပေါ် ရှုံ့ချခြင်း။
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ အဖွဲ့ဝင်များနှင့် ထင်ရှားကျော်ကြားသော မြန်မာ့ဒီမိုကရေစီ ဘက်တော်သားများကို ခြိမ်းခြောက်ရန် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားဥပဒေကို အလွဲသုံးစားပြုခြင်းအပေါ် အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရမှ ပြင်းထန်စွာရှုံ့ချသည်။ စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ တစ်ခုတည်းသော တရားဝင်အစိုးရ ဖြစ်သည့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးများ နှင့်ထင်ရှားကျော်ကြားသော ဝန်းရံသူများကို ဤကဲ့သို့ ယုတ်ညံ့စွာ ဒဏ်ခတ်အရေးယူခြင်းသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ ဥပဒေများအရ သော်လည်းကောင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသား ဥပဒေအရ သော်လည်းကောင်း အကျုံးမဝင်ပါ။ ယခုကဲ့သို့ နိုင်ငံရေး တိုက်ခိုက်မှုပြုလုပ်ခြင်းဖြင့် ၎င်းတို့တရားဝင်မှုရရှိအောင် ကြိုးပမ်း အားထုတ်ခြင်းသည် တရားဝင်မှု မရှိသလို ဥပဒေနှင့်လည်း ဆန့်ကျင်နေပါသည်။ စစ်အုပ်စုမှ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားဥပဒေ၏ ပုဒ်မ ၁၆ ကို ကျဉ်းမြောင်းသော အဓိပ္ပါယ် သတ်မှတ်ကန့်သက်မှု အခြေအနေတွင်သာ နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်မှုနှင့် နိုင်ငံကူး လက်မှတ်ရုပ်သိမ်းပိုင်ခွင့်ကို ကိုးကားထားပါသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါအခြေအနေအရ အခြားနိုင်ငံတစ်ခုတွင် ရာသက်ပန် နိုင်ငံသားခံယူမှုသာ ပါဝင်အကြုံးဝင်ပါသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ လက်ရှိသမ္မတကြီး ဒူဝါလရှီးလမှ စစ်အုပ်စု၏ အခြေအမြစ် မရှိသော စွပ်စွဲချက်အပေါ် ပြန်လည်ပြောကြားသည်မှာ - “နိုင်ငံသားဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၁၆ နှင့် ၁၇မှ လုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်မှာ မြန်မာနိင်ငံသား တစ်ဦးသည် အခြားနိုင်ငံတစ်ခုတွင် နိုင်ငံသားခံယူပြီး အခြေချ နေထိုင်မှသာ အကျုံးဝင်မည် ဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ အဖွဲ့ဝင်များအားလုံးသည် တရားမဝင် အာဏာကို လုယူထားသော လူသတ်အဖွဲ့အား အနိုင်ယူပြီးပါက နိုင်ငံတော်သို့ ပြန်လည်ကာ တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ကြမည်ကို ကျွန်ုပ်တို့နိုင်ငံသားအားလုံးမှ နားလည် သဘောပေါက်ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။” ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံ ဥပဒေ ကျွမ်းကျင်သူလည်း ဖြစ်သော အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ တရားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး ဦးသိန်းဦး မှလည်း - “အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် မြေပြင် တိုက်ပွဲများတွင် အကြိမ်ကြိမ် ထိခိုက်နစ်နာနေရသဖြင့် ယခုကဲ့သို့လုံး၀အခြေအမြစ်မရှိသည့် ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်ဖြင့် တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်မှာ သိသာထင်ရှားလျှက်ရှိသည်။ ယခုကဲ့သို့တိုက်ခိုက်မူသည် မည်သို့မျှ တရားမဝင်ကြောင်းကိုလည်း စစ်အုပ်စုမှသိရှိပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၁၇ ပြဌာန်းချက်မှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားတဦးတယောက်သည် အခြားနိုင်ငံခြား တိုင်းပြည် တခုခုတွင် နိုင်ငံသားအဖြစ် ပြောင်းလဲခံယူပြီး၊ အခြေချနေထိုင်မှသာလျှင် ယခုကဲ့သို့ နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်မူကို ရုပ်သိမ်းပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ အခြားအကြောင်း တစုံတရာဖြင့် နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်မူကို ရပ်စဲရုပ်သိမ်းပိုင်ခွင့် လုံး၀မရှိကြောင်း ဥပဒေတွင် အတိအလင်းပြဌာန်းထားသည်”- ဟုပြောကြားလိုက်သည်။ ဆက်လက်၍ တရားရေးဝန်ကြီး ဦးသိန်းဦးမှ- လက်ရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားဥပဒေကို ပယ်ဖျက်ပြီး၊ အသစ်ပြန်လည်ရေးဆွဲသွားမည်ဟု တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊ ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးက ပြောကြားလိုက်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးက “ကျွန်တော်နှင့် ကျွန်တော်၏ လုပ်ဖော်ကိုင်ဖက်များကို ယခုကဲ့သို့ အဓိပ္ပါယ်မဲ့ တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်းဖြင့် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ စိတ်ဓါတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ထိခိုက်သွားစေမည်ဟု စစ်အုပ်စုမှ တွေးထင်နေခြင်းသည် သာလျှင် ၎င်းတို့အနေဖြင့် မည်မျှထင်ယောင်ထင်မှား ဖြစ်နေသည်ကို သိသာစေပါသည်။ ၎င်းတို့တွေးထင်နေသလို မဖြစ်သည့်အပြင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်သစ်ကြီးဆီသို့ ငြိမ်းချမ်းမူနှင့် တရားမျှတမူ ယူဆောင်လာသည့်အခါ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့မှ စစ်အုပ်စုအဖွဲ့ဝင်များအား နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်မူကို ရုပ်သိမ်းမည် မဟုတ်သော်လည်း၊ စစ်အုပ်စု ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သမျှ စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မူများနှင့် ရက်စက်ယုတ်မာမူများအား ထိရောက်စွာ အရေးယူ အပြစ်ပေးနိုင်မည့် တရားစီရင်မူကို ပြုလုပ်သွားမည် ဖြစ်သည်” -ဟု ပြောကြားလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Justice
Date of publication: 2022-04-04
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: The Layers of Legal Development in Myanmar
Description: "When lawyers, law professors or government officials in Myanmar today are asked what kind of legal system Myanmar has, the resounding response is that it is a ‘common law’ system.1 This advice is received as music to the ears of donors and investors from common law countries, who presume that the ‘common law’ has the same meaning everywhere and that this will facilitate future legal transplants of common law models. Although Myanmar has a legal system derived from a British colonial model, it has developed significantly since then. There remain some similarities with its common law heritage, such as that judges and lawyers follow judicial precedent where it exists, but in many areas of law it is virtually nonexistent (see Tun Zaw Mra, this volume; Tun, this volume). To really understand what kind of legal system Myanmar has and how it operates today, it is necessary to look beyond the ‘common law’ label. There is a need to carefully reconsider the wider history of its legal institutions, the patterns of law making and the role of law makers. In this chapter, I respond to this challenge by surveying the layered legal history of Myanmar. This is not to suggest that Myanmar is somehow less than a common law legal system but, rather, to emphasise the diversity of legal institutions and legal practice within the common law world and recognise that Myanmar has not always been a part of it. My approach stresses multiple, and at times conflicting, layers of development in order to refute the perception that law reform has occurred alongside what has been perceived by some outsiders as the ‘big bang’ of political reforms since 2011. This allows us to consider the complexity inherent in the legal institutions within an ostensibly ‘common law’ system, and the ruptures, road bumps and sharp bends that obstruct the road to reform. Like many other colonies, Burma experienced the devastating effects of British imperialism. Its experience of British colonialism was the shortest in Southeast Asia,2 and this meant that the colonial legal system did not evolve over a long period of time but was largely imported from British India. The legal system also developed in ways distinct from other former British colonies because at independence it was one of only two former colonies to reject the British Commonwealth, and this severed ties with the courts and legal profession in England. The fact cited most often to emphasise Myanmar’s distinct context is, however, that its military has dominated the political sphere for decades (Egreteau and Jagan 2013: 9), which means that the armed forces have exerted significant influence over the legal system since 1962. Keeping this in mind, I seek to explore how judicial and legal institutions relate to political developments, as many other Asian legal studies scholars such as Lev have done (Lev 2000: 161). Specifically I examine the origins of the law in Myanmar, the key influences on the development of the modern system and the direction it has taken. While each successive regime issued reassurances about the continuity of laws, the reality is that, following independence, laws were often superimposed on a fragile constitutional order and used to justify violence, exploitation and military rule. This does not mean that law was irrelevant or meaningless but rather that we need to take a closer look in order to understand what law means in authoritarian settings (Ginsburg and Simpser 2014; Ginsburg and Moustafa 2008) and the ways in which remnants of these legal nightmares overshadow the present reform efforts. The Origins of Burmese Law The area that we know today as Myanmar was ruled by a series of different kingdoms. The first to be established by the Burmans was known as the Kingdom of Bagan. While there were interregnums between some kingdoms, the period of the kings clearly ended with the downfall of the Konbaung dynasty in 1885. Prior to this, a distinct legal culture had developed over time in Burma (Huxley 2008: 184). The primary sources relevant to our understanding of pre-colonial legal culture in the area date to the twelfth century and contain inscriptions with records of judicial disputes.3 These sources indicate that a body of written law known in Burmese as dhammathat was used in the adjudication of cases.4 Lammerts has classified the dhammathat into two types: ‘manual texts’, or compilations of bodies of knowledge; and, ‘narrative texts’ that contain a full legal story from beginning to end (Lammerts 2010: 208–28). It was the second style of narrative texts that characterised the dhammathat and distinguished it from other types of written law in pre-modern Burma (Lammerts 2010: 366). The dhammathat have been described as a ‘manual of instruction’ for judges, whose legal authority was derived from their ‘moral and educational’ credentials (Lammerts 2010: 434, 492). They do not easily equate to a common law understanding of law reports, legislation, codifications of law or religious texts (Huxley 1988–89: 24). In addition, records and texts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries demonstrate that court cases and other literature also made reference to other recognised sources of law. These include pyat-hton, which were essentially compilations of judge-made precedent; yazathat, that is, law made by the king (Lammerts 2010: 3); canonical and non-canonical Jātaka and related Buddhist narratives; and vinaya, monastic law, which in pre-modern Burma was, in certain instances, applied also to the laity (see generally Lammerts 2010).5 The dhammathats are generally structured around 18 major titles of law. These 18 titles comprise criminal, personal and economic matters; dhammathats also contain extensive rules on legal procedure, kingship and monastic law (see generally Lammerts 2010). The history of their reception is complex6 but until the eighteenth century dhammathat was generally regarded as a form of law that originated in Buddhist tradition and was preserved and passed down unaltered by legists and kings. After the eighteenth century Burmese legal scholars increasingly argued that dhammathat should also be understood as a product of human law making to foster social prosperity so that merit making could be undertaken. Up until the colonial era dhammathat was regarded as authoritative Buddhist literature, on a par with, and, according to some authors, even included in, the Buddhist canon (Lammerts 2013). The kings, some of whom are now memorialised in imposing statutes at the capital city of Naypyidaw, sought to conquer local kingdoms and propagate Buddhism. They included the first main king, Anawratha (1044–77); King Bayinnaung (1551–81), who achieved unrivalled expansion of power; and King Alaungpaya (1752–60), who was the first to sign an agreement with a foreign power, England (Steinberg 1982: 18–24). The king was the head of the Hluttaw, the Supreme Council of State. The Hluttaw fulfilled numerous roles, including as a legislative chamber, a ministerial cabinet, and a court that had civil and criminal jurisdiction, and could hear appeals from lower courts (Kyaw Yin 1968: 62). Some kings have been noted for the significant legal reforms they undertook, such as King Mindon (1853–78), who initiated changes to the court system of administration and improved social infrastructure (Thant Myint U 2004: 109–29). King Mindon also introduced regulations to combat corruption, and facilitate greater specialisation by the courts, dividing them into civil and criminal jurisdictions (Yi Yi 1962: 11–19). As this legal tradition developed, a unique legal profession emerged, 7 which was already established in at least the twelfth century (E Maung 1951: 15). Law advocates were known by the term she-ne, which aptly captures the role of lawyers as advocating on behalf of their clients because it literally means ‘those who stand in front’ (Huxley 1994: 219). This rich legal tradition and its profession of ‘tradition bearers’ came to an abrupt end in the 1880s (Huxley 2008: 199). The onset of colonialism led to the intentional decimation of a highly literate and professional legal culture (Huxley 1998). The social, political and legal customs and traditions established and developed during the period of the kings was profoundly disrupted and displaced by the Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–26, 1852–53 and 1885), which were the result of both internal factors and external developments in the region. In the early 1800s, tensions rose between British and French colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and their rivalry and battle for ‘supremacy’ in the region led to the Anglo-Burmese Wars (Furnivall 1948: 70). The British embarked on what became known as the First Anglo-Burmese War in order to cement the boundaries of British India. This led to the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo, ceding parts of southern and western Burma to the British, and the annexation of the Rakhine and Tenasserim regions. Mr Maingy, the first Commissioner of Tenasserim, set about establishing a judicial system but proceeded on the misguided assumption that all decisions of the Burmese courts were merely ‘arbitrary’ (Furnivall 1991: 22). The British were not content with the Yandabo concessions, and after launching the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, Rangoon and other parts of Lower Burma were ceded to them. British authorities then began to take steps to flesh out a legal system that they intended would consolidate territorial rule. In 1866 the Chief Commissioner was given power to enforce the laws of India in Burma but did not have power to promulgate laws (Donnison 1953: 29). It was not until 1872, however, that the first Judicial Commissioner of Burma, Douglas Sandford, was appointed and took over judicial powers from the Chief Commissioner (Furnivall 1960: 12). In the same year, court decisions began to be reported for the first time, with the publication of the Selective Lower Judgements of Lower Burma. The ultimate demise of the monarchy and its system of law in Burma occurred as a result of the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885. King Thibaw, the last king of the Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885), and his family were captured by the British and shipped off to India. One effect of this final stage of the annexation of Burma to British India was to subsume it under the foreign common law tradition..."
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Source/publisher: Melissa Crouch
Date of publication: 2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-16
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Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Justice Announcement No.5/ 2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၅/၂၀၂၁
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၅/၂၀၂၁ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ၊ ၇ ရက်နေ့ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီအလိုကျ တရားစစ်ဆေးစီရင်နေခြင်းသည် ပြစ်မှုကျူးလွန်နေခြင်းဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Justice
Date of publication: 2021-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 216.9 KB
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Title: Myanmar Coup Chief Amends Counterterrorism Law
Description: "Myanmar’s coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing signed an amendment to the Counterterrorism Law on Monday, introducing harsher penalties for supporting anti-regime activities. Under the amendment, the jail term is increased from three to seven years for “acts of exhortation, persuasion, propaganda and recruitment of any person to participate in any terrorist group or activities of terrorism”. Legal analysts said the amendment is a threat to media reports in support of the National Unity Government (NUG) and the People’s Defense Force (PDF) because it allows the military junta to prosecute outlets under the false pretext of propaganda. They also said the different nature of the Counterterrorism Law makes it harder for the accused to prove innocence. In other criminal cases, the prosecution is responsible to prove the defendant guilty. But under the Counterterrorism Law, the accused has to prove their innocence. In May, the military regime branded the NUG, its parliamentary committee and their offshoot civilian defense forces as “terrorist groups” for alleged acts of incitement against the junta. The NUG designated the military and its affiliated organizations as terrorist groups on June 7 for perpetrating acts of terrorism towards innocent civilians, creating public fear for political motives to control the country. A total of 945 people, including children, were killed between February and August 2 by the regime with 5,474 people under detention and arrest warrants issued for 1,964 people, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s military takes power in coup, detains Suu Kyi
Description: " Myanmar’s military staged a coup Monday and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi — a sharp reversal of the significant, if uneven, progress toward democracy the Southeast Asian nation has made following five decades of military rule. An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV said Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year. It said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s claims of fraud in November’s elections — in which Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a majority of the parliamentary seats up for grabs — and because it allowed the election to go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic. The takeover came the morning the country’s new parliamentary session was to begin and follows days of concern that a coup was coming. The military maintains its actions are legally justified — citing a section of the constitution it drafted that allows it to take control in times of national emergency — though Suu Kyi’s party spokesman as well as many international observers have said it amounts to a coup. It was a dramatic backslide for Myanmar, which was emerging from decades of strict military rule and international isolation that began in 1962. It was also a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then became its de facto leader after her National League for Democracy won elections in 2015..."
Source/publisher: "Associated Press" (USA)
Date of publication: 2021-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-02-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Can the police be loyal to the elected government?
Topic: Myanmar Police Force, Aung San Suu Kyi, child abuse, Tatmadaw, constitution
Sub-title: The “Victoria” child rape case has laid bare the institutional failings of the Myanmar Police Force at a time when the government is also asking questions about the force’s conduct.
Topic: Myanmar Police Force, Aung San Suu Kyi, child abuse, Tatmadaw, constitution
Description: "Tthere have been demonstrations in Yangon, Mandalay and other cities amid public disgust at a Myanmar Police Force news conference held after charges were dismissed against the defendant in the “Victoria” toddler rape case. The case concerns the rape of a two-year-old girl at a private nursery school in Nay Pyi Taw last year, who was later dubbed Victoria as part of a social media campaign. There has been dissatisfaction over the way the police had handled the case since it came to light last May, but this turned to anger when senior officers revealed at the December 19 news conference the name and address of the victim and her parents, in apparent breach of the Child Rights Law. The news conference came a day after the Dekkhina District Court in Nay Pyi Taw dismissed charges against Ko Aung Kyaw Myo (aka Aung Gyi), a driver employed by the supervisor at the school the girl attended, because of a lack of evidence. There was also public anger that documents relating to the case were posted on the MPF’s “Ye Zarni” Facebook page on the day of the news conference, before being taken down. The public protests against the MPF came after State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met senior MPF officers in Nay Pyi Taw on December 18 and urged them to be loyal to the government. In a wide-ranging speech, Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the deterioration of law and order in Rakhine State, the different roles of the MPF and the Tatmadaw, corruption within the MPF, narcotics trafficking, and the need for the MPF to take steps to build public confidence in its ability to provide security and peace..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2020-01-09
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar's zero-tolerance drug policy is doomed to fail
Sub-title: Myanmar is not waging a war on drugs.
Description: "It is waging a war on the people who consume illicit drugs, and those who sell them in relatively small quantities. In doing so, it is punishing the victims of state policies that have allowed some organisations, including militias in Shan State that are allied to the Tatmadaw, to produce massive quantities of drugs – notably yaba, crystal meth and opium – within Myanmar’s borders with impunity. As a recent International Crisis Group report, Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State, makes clear, there is little appetite among law enforcement to target those who are making billions of dollars a year from illicit drug production and spreading the drug scourge from Shan State to as far as Japan and Australia. There are no easy solutions to the drug production problem. The least the government can do though is to refrain from inflicting further harm on those whose lives have already been affected by drugs. However, Myanmar finds itself in a situation where not only is drug production ballooning, but prisons are overflowing with drug users and low-level dealers; last year, the Attorney General’s office reported to the national legislature that over half of all prisoners had been incarcerated for drug-related offences, resulting in overcrowding, understaffing and a budget blowout for the Department of Corrections. Other government officials have estimated that up to 70 percent of inmates could be in prison for drug offences. This is the result of adopting a zero-tolerance drug policy in a country where impunity and corruption are rife. It was always doomed to fail..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2019-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s invisible prosecutors: a guide to their powers and the pressures they face
Topic: criminal justice, justice, Union Attorney General's Office, constitution, Anti-Corruption Commission
Sub-title: The “law officers” who prosecute criminal cases in Myanmar should be important players in determining which cases go to trial, but their role – and the informal pressures they face to either drop or proceed with charges – receive little public scrutiny.
Topic: criminal justice, justice, Union Attorney General's Office, constitution, Anti-Corruption Commission
Description: "IT IS not widely known that prosecutors in criminal cases, known as “law officers”, are not under the Tatmadaw, who control the police, but answer ultimately to the president. As frontline staff of the Office of the Union Attorney General, they are – on paper, at least – the main players in identifying and recommending cases that are brought before a court. But their role is seldom mentioned in discussions of the criminal justice system and its failings, which the civilian government often claims to have little influence over. The 2008 Constitution gives the president the power to appoint a cabinet-level attorney general for a five-year term whose role is to provide legal advice, assign duties on legal matters – such as the scrutiny of proposed laws – and report back to the president. Under the attorney general are the deputy attorney general, the regional and state advocates general, and the law officers, who serve at courts. The advocates general appointed by state and regional chief ministers have similar powers to that of the attorney general. The “gatekeeper” role of the law officer is specified under an order issued by the attorney general in 2016. After conducting their investigation, the police transfer the evidence – primarily the First Information Report and witness statements – to the relevant law office. A law officer reviews the evidence and if they decide the evidence is strong enough to present in court, they transfer it to the relevant court. Alternatively, they can send it back to the police recommending either they investigate further or close the case completely. In September 2018, the Anti-Corruption Commission brought charges against Yangon Region Advocate General U Han Htoo and five other officials, including a judge, over allegations that they had accepted more than K70 million in cash and kind to withdraw charges against three suspects in the alleged murder of Facebook comedian Aung Yell Htwe. The case continues at the Yangon Region High Court. The charges under the Anti-Corruption Law carry maximum prison sentences of between 10 and 15 years..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2019-10-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar: Five years without justice for journalist Ko Par Gyi’s killing highlights need to reform 1959 law that facilitates military impunity
Sub-title: Reform of the 1959 Defence Services Act is a necessary step to address ongoing military impunity. The case of Ko Par Gyi’s killing should be reopened to satisfy the State’s international law obligations and deter repetition of serious crimes by soldiers.
Description: "Five years after the death of journalist Ko Par Gyi, the ICJ calls on the Government of Myanmar to reform the 1959 Defence Services Act, which was used to shield soldiers from accountability for involvement in his killing. “The case is emblematic of the 1959 Defence Services Act being used to enable impunity for human rights violations by soldiers throughout Myanmar, by transferring to military courts the authority to investigate and prosecute serious crimes against civilians,” said Frederick Rawski, Asia Pacific Region Director for the ICJ. “Impunity for Ko Par Gyi’s death is another example of this law being used to shield soldiers from accountability for serious crimes,” added Rawski. “Legislators should reform the 1959 law to enable the public criminal prosecution of soldiers for serious crimes in all circumstances, and take other steps to address the accountability gap.” After being detained by police in Mon State and transferred into military detention on 30 September 2014, Ko Par Gyi died four days later in the custody of Tatmadaw soldiers. Unceremoniously buried in a shallow grave, Ko Par Gyi’s death was hidden from his family and the public for weeks. Nobody has been held accountable for his death and his family lacks access to redress, including their right to know the truth..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "International Commission of Jurists" (Switzerland)
Date of publication: 2019-10-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: EBO MYANMAR - 2015 ANNUAL REPORT
Description: "EBO provides facilitation and technical support to help resolve conflicts and reconcile differences through dialogue. EBO supports the Myanmar peace process by acting as a facilitator or advisor in crisis situations, by communicating with various factions involved in conflicts or political deadlocks. 
EBO aims to develop trust between stakeholders by helping build relationships that will underpin channels of communication between different groups. EBO does not seek to advance any side’s agenda or any particular ideology. In most situations, EBO uses informal channels to facilitate communications between groups and builds on the collective experience of EBO staff and international expert consultants. It also draws on the experience and knowledge of other peace processes.
 EBO helps to prepare stakeholders for effective participation in negotiations; ensuring that all sides are well informed on the latest developments and are acquainted with the ins-and-outs of formal and non-formal processes. EBO also provides support in ensuring lessons learned and best practices are shared among different groups in order to maximise the potential for successful negotiations. For long-term solutions, EBO seeks to initiate and support sustainable, long-term resolutions to conflicts by promoting the participation of all key stakeholders in dialogue processes. EBO aims to achieve lasting settlements to violent and complex conflicts in Myanmar, both military and political. By doing so, EBO aims not only to end the suffering directly caused by conflicts, but also to address the problems of poverty, human rights infringements, lack of proper education, under-developed economy, and other issues that are the inevitable by-products of violence and political unrest. EBO facilitates dialogue with, and in-between: Ethnic Armed Organizations, Tatmadaw (Government Army), Ethnic Political Parties, Government In 2015, EBO facilitation work mainly focused on: The Deed of Commitment (DoC) The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) The Union-level Political Dialogue process State-based Political Dialogue processes Maintaining the Bilateral Ceasefire Agreements and keeping the peace by supporting Liaison Offices and building their capacity. Much of this work was supported by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (FELM) as well as the Common Space Initiative (CSI). The EBO-FELM-CSI consortium manages the funds for the peace process provided by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The objective of this partnership is to facilitate the peace process by supporting and strengthening it as well as the emerging political dialogue through technical support and confidence building between the dialogue partners..."
Source/publisher: Euro Burma Office (EBO)
Date of publication: 2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.26 MB
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Title: Rioting for Rule of Law – Prison Amnesties and Riots in Myanmar
Description: Regular readers of the Tea Circle are likely well-aware that more than 23,000 prisoners were recently released on amnesties granted in connection with the celebration of Myanmar New Year in April. In this brief piece we raise some critical questions about the presidential power to pardon. In Myanmar, New Year amnesties are a common practice and the releases are an annual feature of news reporting. This year the amnesties were accompanied by violence. The amnesties took place in three rounds on April 17th, 26th and May 7th. As the media presented joyful accounts of reunions with family members and expressions of relief at the prospect of freedom, unrest developed in the prisons. The unrest escalated into riots in seven prisons across the country on May 8th. On May 9th, the riot in Shwe Bo Prison came to a fatal conclusion after officials went in with tear gas and guns, killing four prisoners and wounding two. A video streamed live on Facebook via an illegal mobile phone from Shwe Bo Prison on May 8th caught our attention. It features prisoners wandering around outside their cells cheering and shouting: “We should be released like Moe Aung Yin – our cause, our cause”. In the slogan, their call for clemency was accompanied by the slogan associated with the pro-democracy movement that fought the former military regime and whose representatives from the NLD (National League for Democracy) now govern the country. Statements from the President’s office declared that the amnesties were given on humanitarian grounds with priority given to women and juveniles as well as elderly, sick, and disabled prisoners. The prisoners were protesting that the amnesties were not given on a systematic basis. They called for a fair and transparent amnesty practice; they called for rule of law. From their perspective, the selection and release of people such as Moe Aung Yin, a well-known Myanmar actor, and the Reuters journalists seemed arbitrary or at least not to fit the humanitarian criteria laid out. This situation is doubly ironic. Prisoners — those deemed criminal law breakers by the state — call for rule of law and stand up against the arbitrary expression of power and they do so echoing the protest slogans (“Our cause, our cause!”) previously used by the opposition movement as they stood up against the military regime. After the riots, opposition parties raised a critique similar to the grievances expressed by the prisoners in a joint press conference by the National Unity Party, the National Political Alliance League and the USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party) on June 5th. While echoing the prisoners’ critique of the arbitrariness of the amnesties, the opposition parties claimed that the lack of thorough investigation of which prisoners to release would lead to dangerous criminals bring released. As a reply, a spokesperson from the President’s Office informed them that the amnesty was aimed at minor drug cases and considered appeals submitted to the President and the State Counselor. While this explains how famous cases of actors and journalists got included in what was presented as an amnesty on humanitarian grounds, it confirms the lack of transparency that makes the selection of prisoners included in the amnesties appear arbitrary. Our research in Myanmar is about legacies of detention. We are especially interested in the way prison is experienced and the politics of imprisonment. The amnesties and the prisoners’ response to them speak to these themes in interesting ways. Our research so far has made us aware that prisoners serving long sentences in Myanmar historically came to look to amnesties as a potential route to release. Over the years, many prisoners have been released via the presidential pardon rather than on their court-mandated release date. But amnesties create uncertainty. They are at the discretion of the President’s Office and the prisoner never knows whether he or she will be on the list. So, while the joyous reunions at the prison gate may make amnesties appear as overwhelmingly positive, they are more ambivalent in their broader effects when seen from the perspective of prisoners either anticipating amnesty or left behind. We can also raise critical questions about the power to pardon and the practice of amnesties from the perspective of rule of law. In effect, amnesties are at odds with the logic meant to govern release of prisoners in a criminal justice system based on rule of law: they are arbitrary rather than systematic, discretionary rather than mandatory. Amnesties can be seen as a demonstration of executive power trumping judicial power and may have an undermining effect on the long-term efforts to transform the judicial system and bring it into line with international norms and standards for justice delivery. This is ironic given the emphasis the current administration has otherwise given to the rule of law. Presidential pardons of this kind are perfectly legal, and relatively commonplace across the world; they serve as a gesture that emphasises executive power and reminds the judiciary that in certain situations it is subject to, rather than independent of, the executive. Complicating the situation in Myanmar is the uneasy balance of power between the NLD and the military that has the military controlling important government ministries, including those responsible for justice and prisons. It may even be the case that some aspects of the recent amnesties (for example the release of the Reuters journalists) can be seen as a kind of victory for the NLD as they were able to legitimately usurp authority from the military-controlled ministry formally responsible for the administration of sentencing and release. Critical questions can also be raised about whether amnesties are a good solution to overcrowding, a common criticism of Myanmar’s prisons. While amnesties of this size do contribute to decreasing the population of Myanmar’s overcrowded prisons, they do not solve the systemic issue of over-population. Relatively large numbers of prisoners have been granted amnesties for years, but the population keeps increasing. Alternative strategies for decarceration are needed. One promising initiative in this direction is the decriminalization of drug use through ongoing reform of drug laws. In this vein, most of the amnesties have been granted to prisoners with drug-related cases— a fact which also reflects that the majority of prisoners in Myanmar are imprisoned on such cases. From a human rights perspective, one can ask whether pardoning is a practice that should be encouraged or frowned upon. On the one hand, the small contribution towards decarceration might ease the pains of imprisonment for those released as well as those left behind. On the other hand, it undermines the justice system’s internal logic and adds to the uncertainty felt by prisoners. We might also ask whether, if someone can be released on humanitarian grounds in celebration of a holiday, there are really grounds for keeping him or her confined in the first place. In our view, rather than relying on amnesties, Myanmar politicians should look to ways of reducing the use of imprisonment through diversion, fair and proportionate sentencing practices, the decriminalisation of petty offences, and the use of alternatives to imprisonment. Liv S. Gaborit is a PhD fellow at Roskilde University and DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture, currently she is a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University. Her research focuses on experiences of imprisonment in Myanmar. Andrew M. Jefferson is a prison scholar based at DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture. He specialises in ethnographic studies of prisons and prison reform processes in the global south focused especially on issues related to survival, governance and transition
Creator/author: Liv Gaborit, Andrew Jefferson
Source/publisher: TEACIRCLEOXFORD
Date of publication: 2019-06-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Building Agreement on Restitution Rights within the Myanmar Peace Process and National Legal Framework - A Manual for Practitioners
Description: ''This manual outlines proposals for the insertion of housing, land and property restitution rights simultaneously within the context of the ongoing peace process and within broader national legal reform eforts, including work towards a national land law. The paper begins by emphasising that many countries emerging from both conflict and political reform processes have successfully implemented restitution programmes, and that the current, largely piecemeal, eforts towards restitution in Myanmar under the Central Land Grab Reinvestigation Committee processes are simply inadequate in securing restitution rights for everyone in and from Myanmar with a legitimate restitution claim. The manual proposes that a comprehensive agreement be reached between all relevant stakeholders to establish restitution rights under Myanmar law, and that an independent Myanmar National Restitution Commission be created to receive and decide upon all outstanding restitution claims concerning housing, land and property anywhere within the country. The various sections of the manual provide detailed analysis of the types of provisions that would need to be included within such agreements, and suggest precise legal language as to how these provisions could be formulated within an eventual comprehensive agreement. The manual takes the view that the people of Myanmar will be best served if courageous decisions by all involved in the peace and legislative processes lead to the development of a comprehensive restitution process and procedure whereby all outstanding restitution claims can finally be addressed, adjudicated and enforced. Only through such a process can enough justice and clarity be provided within the housing, land and property sectors for the foundations of democracy, economic prosperity and growing security and stability be reached...''
Source/publisher: reliefweb
Date of publication: 2019-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.12 MB
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Title: Getting away with murder in Myanmar
Description: ''Two years since Myanmar’s most prominent constitutional and human rights lawyer Ko Ni was assassinated in broad daylight and still there is no justice in sight. The lack of closure is all the more telling considering Ko Ni had high-level ties to the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party and was working from behind the scenes to amend a constitution that gives disproportionate political and administrative powers to the military. Ko Ni was shot and killed on January 29, 2017 while leaving a terminal building at Yangon’s international airport upon his return from a trip overseas. Kyi Lin, the gunman, was captured at the scene after a struggle in which he also shot and killed a taxi driver, Nay Win, who heroically ran after the assailant. Ko Ni’s burial in accordance with Muslim rituals, was carried out within 24 hours of his death. At his funeral, the road to the Muslim cemetery in Yangon’s North Okkalapa suburb was lined with cars, minivans and buses as thousands of people came to pay their last respects....''
Source/publisher: Asia Times
Date of publication: 2019-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Myanmar: ICJ marks 2nd year anniversary of the killing of lawyer U Ko Ni
Description: ''“This brazen killing of a prominent democracy advocate demands a rigorous State response to show this type of crime will be fully punished,” said Frederick Rawski, the ICJ’s Director for Asia and the Pacific. Despite an official investigation and reports of more than 100 court hearings, nobody has been held accountable for U Ko Ni’s death – criminally or otherwise – and the circumstances have not yet been satisfactorily explained. “Myanmar simply cannot satisfy its international law obligations without conducting an impartial and independent investigation that is free of military influence. Such an investigation is a pre-requisite for conducting an effective prosecution in a fair trial setting,” added Rawski. U Ko Ni was well known as a vocal advocate for human rights and democratic reform in Myanmar. As an adviser to the National Legal of Democracy party, he was involved in creating the position of State Counselor, which formalized a leadership role for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, despite a constitutional provision barring her from the Presidency...''
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Date of publication: 2019-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Justice in Burma: Wounds on the Wall
Description: "In March 2018, a new museum opened in Rangoon. It does not boast any artworks or ancient artefacts, but hundreds of pictures documenting the extent of state violence committed against Burmese citizens since the military seized power half a century ago. Grainy black and white shots depict officers beating up students protesting against Ne Win?s coup in 1962, before moving to the savage repression of democracy activists in 1988 and the torture of those who defended the electoral victory of the National League for Democracy in 1990. By the time we reach the 2007 Saffron Revolution, the Burmese state?s brutality is displayed in technicolour..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Teacircleoxford
Date of publication: 2018-05-23
Date of entry/update: 2018-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Title: Law & Constitutionalism in Myanmar: A Year in Review
Description: Myanmar has had a busy and controversial year on the legal and "constitutional fronts. There have been important victories, moments where the status quo has prevailed, and significant setbacks which have made clear that authoritarianism is not a thing of the past. In this contribution, I canvass two distinct areas: (1) important legislation adopted at the national level; and (2) constitutional transformation and usage. The goal is to provide an account of what Myanmar has experienced in order to encourage a wider conversation about these developments. The transition to democracy is not an easy one. It takes time and effort to build a climate conducive to democratic accountability, federalism, the rule of law, and human rights. The solution is not to abandon the fight, but to commit to moving the dial every single day..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Teacircleoxford
Date of publication: 2018-05-24
Date of entry/update: 2018-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: MYANMAR: LOWER HOUSE SHOULD REJECT PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY LAW
Description: "(Bangkok, 21 March 2018) The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and its member, Equality Myanmar are gravely concerned by the approval of the proposed amendments to the 2011 Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law by the House of Nationalities (Upper House) on 7 March 2018.[1] The amended bill has been sent to the House of Representatives (Lower House) where it is expected to be discussed this week. These new amendments are highly restrictive of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, freedom of expression, and democracy in Myanmar. The amendments, which were originally submitted on 19 February 2018 by the Upper House Bill Committee, present several contentious changes to the law, which further restrict freedoms and liberties which they are supposed to protect and promote. According to the amended Article 4[2], a notification letter has to be submitted to the authority at least 48 hours in advance for any public assembly, and that such an assembly may not conflict with laws protecting national security, rule of law, public order, or public moral. This vague provision provides room for the authorities to simply reject a request based on ambiguous grounds, even if the assembly is deemed a peaceful gathering according to international standards.[3] A proportionality assessment must be done to ensure that restrictions imposed on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly are proportionate to the legitimate objectives of the law..."
Source/publisher: ASIAN FORUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT AND EQUALITY
Date of publication: 2018-03-21
Date of entry/update: 2018-04-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 138.72 KB
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Title: Behind Closed Doors : Obstacles and Opportunities for Public Access to Myanmar ?s Courts (Burmese-မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:"The right to a public hearing serves the interests of a defendant or the parties to a proceeding by promoting accountability and scrutiny of all actors involved in court processes. The right also serves the interests of the public at large, encouraging public understanding of the judicial system and helping to establish its legitimacy.The right to a public hearing is not absolute. International rights instruments recognise that, in some contexts, the right may be outweighed by the right to privacy or other concerns. While Myanmar law provides for the right to a public hearing, observations conducted by Justice Base reveal there are, in practice, substantial barriers to public access to both court premises and individual courtrooms in Yangon. Justice Base?s four observers spent one month observing 205 criminal and civil hearings in 119 courtrooms across 36 of Yangon?s 50 courts. During this time: ....."
Source/publisher: Justice Base
Date of publication: 2017-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese
Format : pdf
Size: 1.61 MB
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Title: Women?s Access to Justice in the Plural Legal System of Myanmar (English)
Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:"This qualitative study was conducted in four geographic target areas that included urban and semi-rural areas of Chin State, Mon State, Kachin State and the city of Yangon. Local research teams used focus group discussions, key informant interviews and participatory mapping activities to collect information from over 400 community members, legal practitioners, local administrators and other key stakeholders. Consultations and data validation sessions were iteratively held with partner organisations to further ensure that women and peer groups could articulate their positions and preferred strategies for improving their access to justice. The project did not focus on specified thematic issues (for example, land rights or domestic violence), but rather provided a broad space for women and men from target communities to self-identify what they saw as women?s most pressing legal concerns. Research participants identified domestic violence, sexual assault and traditional inheritance practices as the most prevalent injustices women faced. Women also described these issues as the least likely to be submitted for adjudication by formal or informal legal mechanisms. The avoidance of justice systems in response to these events was explained in part by several women and men respondents who defined family matters ? those between a husband and wife or parents and children ? as situated outside the jurisdiction of law...."
Source/publisher: Justice Base
Date of publication: 2016-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.48 MB
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Title: Behind Closed Doors : Obstacles and Opportunities for Public Access to Myanmar ?s Courts (English)
Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:"The right to a public hearing serves the interests of a defendant or the parties to a proceeding by promoting accountability and scrutiny of all actors involved in court processes. The right also serves the interests of the public at large, encouraging public understanding of the judicial system and helping to establish its legitimacy.The right to a public hearing is not absolute. International rights instruments recognise that, in some contexts, the right may be outweighed by the right to privacy or other concerns. While Myanmar law provides for the right to a public hearing, observations conducted by Justice Base reveal there are, in practice, substantial barriers to public access to both court premises and individual courtrooms in Yangon. Justice Base?s four observers spent one month observing 205 criminal and civil hearings in 119 courtrooms across 36 of Yangon?s 50 courts. During this time: ....."
Source/publisher: Justice Base
Date of publication: 2017-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 492.88 KB
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Title: Monitoring in Myanmar : An Analysis of Myanmar?s Compliance with Fair Trial Rights (Burmese - မန်မာဘာသာ)
Description: CONCLUSION (part): "...The five fair trial rights addressed in this report — the right to a defence, the right to adequate time and fa cilities to prepare a defence, the right to a hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, the right to be tried without undue delay and the right to a public hearing — are not the only areas of concern in Yangon Region?s Township and District Courts. Nonetheless, the data relat ed to each of these rights reveal significant failures in the administration of justice in criminal cases. Defence lawyers commonly began representation subsequent to the inquiry phase, after crucial proceedings in court ha d already occurred. Even when a defendant was able to retain a lawyer, numerous systemic barriers interfered with an effective defence, including lack of professional capacity. Many defence lawyers remain hesitant to challenge judges out of fear of repercussions. The conduct of judges did not always conform to fair trial standards as evidenced by leaving in the middle of hearings, answering phone calls during hearings or otherwise appearing inattentive. In addition, judges granted adjournments in m ore than half of all scheduled hearings , largely for avoidable reasons. Unofficial fees , in addition to the lack of public access to courts , compounds these problems. Allegations of unofficial payments were reported during every stage of the formal judicia l process including obtaining release on bail, accessing documents, seeking adjournments, receiving reduced sentences and securing certified records necessary to file an appeal. Adhering to the highest standards of professional behavio u r would go a long way toward improving the rule of law and the public?s trust in the judiciary. Township Courts are the first, and usually only, contact that defendants and their family, friends, and other participants (such as testifying witnesses) have w ith the formal court system. If defendants and others perceive the court system as biased , they will be less likely to comply with fair trial standards themselves, further undermining the judiciary. Publicity through the presence of media and, in particula r, the presence of trained observers knowledgeable in applicable fair trial rights, can serve as an essential public confidence - building measure. 138 To address the concerns discussed above, Justice Base calls on the Myanmar Government, including the Office of the Supreme Court of the Union, the Union Attorney General? s Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs to implement a comprehensive reform program that includes the following actions and initiatives:..."
Source/publisher: Justice Base
Date of publication: 2017-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.38 MB
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Title: Monitoring in Myanmar : An Analysis of Myanmar?s Compliance with Fair Trial Rights (English)
Description: CONCLUSION (part): "...The five fair trial rights addressed in this report — the right to a defence, the right to adequate time and fa cilities to prepare a defence, the right to a hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, the right to be tried without undue delay and the right to a public hearing — are not the only areas of concern in Yangon Region?s Township and District Courts. Nonetheless, the data relat ed to each of these rights reveal significant failures in the administration of justice in criminal cases. Defence lawyers commonly began representation subsequent to the inquiry phase, after crucial proceedings in court ha d already occurred. Even when a defendant was able to retain a lawyer, numerous systemic barriers interfered with an effective defence, including lack of professional capacity. Many defence lawyers remain hesitant to challenge judges out of fear of repercussions. The conduct of judges did not always conform to fair trial standards as evidenced by leaving in the middle of hearings, answering phone calls during hearings or otherwise appearing inattentive. In addition, judges granted adjournments in m ore than half of all scheduled hearings , largely for avoidable reasons. Unofficial fees , in addition to the lack of public access to courts , compounds these problems. Allegations of unofficial payments were reported during every stage of the formal judicia l process including obtaining release on bail, accessing documents, seeking adjournments, receiving reduced sentences and securing certified records necessary to file an appeal. Adhering to the highest standards of professional behavio u r would go a long way toward improving the rule of law and the public?s trust in the judiciary. Township Courts are the first, and usually only, contact that defendants and their family, friends, and other participants (such as testifying witnesses) have w ith the formal court system. If defendants and others perceive the court system as biased , they will be less likely to comply with fair trial standards themselves, further undermining the judiciary. Publicity through the presence of media and, in particula r, the presence of trained observers knowledgeable in applicable fair trial rights, can serve as an essential public confidence - building measure. 138 To address the concerns discussed above, Justice Base calls on the Myanmar Government, including the Office of the Supreme Court of the Union, the Union Attorney General? s Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs to implement a comprehensive reform program that includes the following actions and initiatives:..."
Source/publisher: Justice Base
Date of publication: 2017-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese
Format : pdf
Size: 317.12 KB
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Title: "SHADOW" NATIONAL BASELINE ASSESSMENT (NBA) OF CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION OF BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORKS - MYANMAR
Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: "Myanmar?s transition from the military junta to democracy that started in 2011 gained ground when the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi took office in April 2016. However, the military elite still maintains extensive economic and political power. The military presides over the ministries of Home Affairs, Border Affairs, and Defense, and holds effective veto power over constitutional changes. The legal and economic reforms that accompanied the transition have not yet addressed holdover problems from the military rule. The rule of law, including the administration of justice and law enforcement, remains weak. Corruption is endemic. Discrimination and abuses against women and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities continue. Human rights abuses linked to business activities are routine. Meanwhile, the government is actively pursuing new economic opportunities and foreign investment, which has hit record high in recent years. It is thus urgent to close gaps in laws, policies, and practices so that businesses operating and investing in Myanmar do not further threaten human rights. ALTSEAN-Burma and ICAR have partnered to support the development of a National Action Plan (NAP) on business and human rights in Myanmar by producing a ?Shadow” National Baseline Assessment (NBA) to assess legal and policy gaps, and identify where further efforts are required. This NBA is developed based on the guidance under ?National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: A Toolkit for the Development, Implementation, and Review of State Commitments to Business and Human Rights Frameworks” (Toolkit), which was developed by ICAR and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) in June 2014.2 In accordance to the Toolkit, the NBA analyzes the States? implementation of Pillars I and III of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), and focuses specifically on those Guiding Principles which represent obligations of the State. The NBA is primarily based on desk research. The project team also conducted a number of consultations with select experts and hosted one workshop with representatives from grassroots organizations to ascertain preliminary findings, complete data gaps, and update the NBA in view of ongoing legislative and policy changes. The following presents a list of findings and recommendations to address critical issues and challenges..."
Creator/author: Marie Krizel Malabanan, Tessa Cerisier, Debbie Stothard, Sophia Lin
Source/publisher: ALTSEAN-Burma (Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma), ICAR (International Corporate Accountability Roundtable)
Date of publication: 2017-12-08
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.79 MB
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Title: Handbook on Habeas Corpus in Myanmar - Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description: နိဒါန်းနှင့် အနှစ်ချုပ် အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေမှ လူသားတစ်ဦးချင်း၏ အခွင့်အရေးဖြစ်သည့် လွတ်လပ်ခွင့်ကို တရား လက်လွတ်ဆုံးရှုံးခံရမှုအပေါ် လျင်မြန်သော တရားရေးကျင့်ထုံးဥပဒေ ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးခြင်း အခွင့်အရေးအတွက် အာမခံပေးထားရာ ၎င်းတွင် အမှီအခိုကင်း၍ ဘက်မလိုက်သည့်တရားရုံးမှ ၎င်းတို့အား ဥပဒေအရ ထိန်းသိမ်းခံထား ရမှုအပေါ် သုံးသပ်ပြီး မှားယွင်းစွာထိန်းသိမ်းခံရသူများအား လွှတ်ပေးရန် အမိန့်ပေးပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည်။1 အဆိုပါ လုပ်ထုံး လုပ်နည်းသည် အင်္ဂလိပ်ရိုးရာဥပဒေ (common law) ကို အခြေခံထားသော ဥပဒေစနစ်များပါ လျှောက်ထားလွှာ ဖြစ်သည့် တရားရုံးရှေ့တော်သွင်း စာချွန်တော်အမိန့်ကို ယေဘုယျအားဖြင့် ရည်ညွှန်းပါသည်။2 ယင်းအခွင့်အရေး သည် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်းခံရမှုမှ လွတ်မြောက်ခွင့်ကို တရားလက်လွတ်ဆုံးရှုံးခြင်း ကြုံတွေ့သည့် မည်သူမဆို တရားရုံးတွင် အမှုခင်းဆိုင်ရာဆောင်ရွက်ချက်ရပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည်။ သို့မှသာ တရားရုံးမှ နှောင့်နှေးမှုမရှိဘဲ ထိန်းသိမ်းမှုသည် ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ဖြစ်၊ မဖြစ်ကို ဆုံးဖြတ်ပေးပြီး၊ အကယ်၍ တရားဥပဒေနှင့် အညီမဖြစ်ပါက ပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးရန် အမိန့်ထုတ်ဆင့်ခြင်းပြုရမည်။3 တရားရုံးတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်းဆိုင်ရာ တရားဝင်မှု ရှိ၊ မရှိ (lawfulness)ကို စိန်ခေါ်နိုင်ခွင့်သည် မိမိကိုယ် ကိုရပ်တည်နိုင်သည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်ပြီး ၎င်းအား ငြင်းကွယ်ခြင်းသည် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှု တစ်ရပ်ပင် ဖြစ်သည်။4 တရားရုံးရှေ့တော်သွင်းစာချွန်တော်အမိန့်သည် ပုဂ္ဂလိကဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်မှု သို့မဟုတ် ရုပ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာကို တရားစီရင်ရေးအမိန့်ဒီဂရီအားဖြင့် ကာကွယ်မှုပေးရာ ၎င်းတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံရသူအား တရားသူကြီးမျက်မှောက်သို့ ခေါ်ဆောင်ရန် အမိန့်ထုတ်ဆင့်ပြီး ထိန်းသိမ်းခံရသူသည် ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ထိန်းသိမ်း ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်ကို ဆုံးဖြတ်နိုင်ခြင်း၊ သင့်တင့်လျောက်ပတ်ပါက ထိန်းသိမ်းခံရသူကို ပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးနိုင်ရန် အမိန့် ထုတ်ဆင့်နိုင်ခြင်းတို့ကို ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ပါသည်။5 မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ စစ်တပ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးလက်အောက်တွင် ဥပဒေအရသော်လည်းကောင်း သို့တည်းမဟုတ် လက် တွေ့ဆောင်ရွက်မှုအားဖြင့်သော်လည်းကောင်း ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းနှင့် ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်းအား သုံးသပ်သည့် တရားစီရင်ရေးအတွက် ထိရောက်သောယန္တရား မရှိခဲ့ပေ။6 မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ ၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေရှိ ကြီးမား သော (မမျှော်လင့်ထားသော) တိုးတက်မှုတစ်ရပ်မှာ တရားရုံးရှေ့တော်သွင်း စာချွန်တော်အမိန့်ဆိုင်ရာ စာချွန် တော်အမိန့်ကို ပြန်လည်မိတ်ဆက်ထည့်သွင်းပေးခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။7 ထိုအချိန်မှစ၍ အစိုးရက ?၂၀၁၄ ခုနှစ် စာချွန်တော် အမိန့် လျှောက်ထားမှုဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေ” ကိုပြဋ္ဌန်းခဲ့ပြီး ပြည်ထောင်စုတရားလွှတ်တော်ချုပ်မှ အဆိုပါဥပဒေကို အကောင် အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက်မှုအတွက် နည်းဥပဒေသများနှင့် လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများကို ပြဋ္ဌာန်းပေးထားပါသည်။8တရားစီရင်ရေးဆိုင်ရာ ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရေးနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကာကွယ်မှု အားကောင်းလာစေရေး လုပ် ငန်းစဉ်ကို ကူညီတွန်းအားပေးရန်အတွက် အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ဥပဒေပညာရှင်များကော်မရှင် (ICJ) အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံ တကာဥပဒေနှင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏လက်ရှိ ပြည်တွင်းဥပဒေတို့အရ တရားရုံးရှေ့တော်သွင်း စာချွန်တော်အမိန့်နှင့် စပ်ဆက်မှုရှိသည့် ဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာ ဤဆွေးနွေးမှုစာတမ်းကို ရေးသားထားပါသည်။ အောက်ပါအချက်များသည့် အထူးအရေးပါသော အချက်များဖြစ်သည်။ • တရားလက်လွတ် သို့မဟုတ် တရားမဝင် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း (သို့မဟုတ်) ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်းကို စိန်ခေါ်မှုပြုရန်အတွက် အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာစံနှုန်း?
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Date of publication: 2016-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.41 MB
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Title: Handbook on Habeas Corpus in Myanmar (English)
Description: "...International law guarantees the right of all individuals deprived of their liberty to an expeditious judicial procedure in which an independent and impartial court reviews the legality of their detention and orders the release of individuals wrongfully detained.1 This right is commonly referred to as ?habeas corpus? in legal systems that are based on common law. The right entitles anyone who is deprived of liberty by arrest or detention to take proceedings before a court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of the detention and order release if the detention is not lawful. The right to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court is a self-standing human right, the denial of which constitutes a human rights violation. Habeas corpus protects personal liberty or physical integrity by means of a judicial decree ordering the appropriate authorities to bring the detained person before a judge so that the lawfulness of the detention may be determined and, if appropriate, the release of the detainee ordered. In Myanmar under military rule from 1962 until 2008, there was no effective mechanism to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court. One of the major (and unanticipated) improvements in Myanmar?s 2008 Constitution was the reintroduction of the writ of habeas corpus. Since then, the government has passed an ?Application of Writs Act 2014” and the Supreme Court has promulgated rules and procedures for its implementation. In order to assist and propel the process of judicial reform and strengthen the protection of human rights, the International Commission of Jurists provides this discussion of the law relevant to the writ of habeas corpus under international law as well as Myanmar?s current national law. The following are of particular significance: • Analysis of international standards for challenging arbitrary or unlawful arrest or detention (including that which results in torture and ill-treatment of detainees)... • Analysis of Myanmar?s current legal framework for the Constitutional writ of habeas corpus... • Analysis of the seemingly forgotten and underutilized procedure for challenging arbitrary arrest and detention (similar to the writ of habeas corpus) under Section 491 of the 1898 Code of Criminal Procedure... • Analysis of the few publicly available recent petitions for the writ of habeas corpus... • Analysis of relevant existing precedents (pre-1962) from the Myanmar judiciary?s case law on habeas corpus....."
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Date of publication: 2016-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 672.25 KB
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Title: Where are Burma?s lawyers in the transition?
Description: N.B. this article is from 2012....."...NOTES: [1] RULE OF LAW PRINCIPLES (twelve) 1. There must be laws prohibiting and protecting against private violence and coercion, general lawlessness and anarchy. 2. The government must be bound (as far as possible) by the same laws that bind individuals. 3. The law must possess characteristics of certainty, generality and equality. Certainty requires that the law be prospective, open, clear and relatively stable. Laws must be of general application to all subjects. The must apply equally to all. 4. The law must be and remain reasonably in accordance with informed public opinion and general social values and there must be some mechanism (formal and informal) for ensuring that. 5. There must be institutions and procedures that are capable of expeditiously enforcing the law. 6. There must be effective procedures and institutions to ensure that government action is also in accordance with the law. 7. There must be an independent judiciary, so that it may be relied upon to apply the law. 8. A system of legal representation is required, preferably by an organized and independent legal profession. 9. The principles of ?natural justice” (or procedural fairness) must be observed in all hearings. 10. The courts must be accessible, without long delays and high costs 11. Enforcement of the law must be impartial and honest. 12. There must be an enlightened public opinion— a public spirit or attitude favoring the application of these propositions. (This proposition has echoes of point number four in it. In addition, it is a requirement that the community be kept informed of the state of the law, social changes and trends requiring amendments to the law (or to the way in which it is enforced), and the need to proceed in a principled way at all times in the general public interest. The media inevitably play a large part in the fulfillment of this requirement ? so freedom of the press, of information and of communications is vital.) [See the Southern Law Review Special Issue Restoring the Rule of Law in Volume 4 December 2000 Lismore NSW]..."
Creator/author: Janelle Saffin
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
Date of publication: 2012-07-18
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: BURMA/MYANMAR: Prosecutor concludes that case against soldiers for Ko Par Gyi killing ?erroneous”
Description: "...Therefore, the Asian Human Rights Commission urges that the Government of Myanmar have the criminal case against the soldiers responsible for killing Ko Par Gyi reopened. Specifically, personnel of the Myanmar Police Force?s Criminal Investigation Department should be assigned to conduct a full inquiry and lodge charges in a civilian court against those persons found responsible for the killing. Recognizing that the case of Ko Par Gyi has the potential to serve both as a legal precedent and as a major political achievement in bringing to an end the decades of impunity that soldiers in Burma at all levels have enjoyed for violence committed on civilians, the new government must devote all available resources, be they material, financial or moral, to its success. Let it never again be said in Burma that to bring a case against a soldier in a criminal court is ?erroneous”."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
Date of publication: 2016-04-10
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Rule of Law: Myanmar - Non-state actors
Description: Out of date..... "The military junta is opposed by dozens of armed ethnic guerrilla groups. There are several dozen non-state armed groups in Burma, and each year sees the creation of one or two more. This is a non-exhaustive list of non-state armed groups currently operating in Burma. Some have signed ceasefire agreements, but have since then taken up arms again, following the 2004 government order to hand over their weapons."
Source/publisher: Rule of Law in Armed Conflict (RULAC )
Date of publication: 2007-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Law and Economic Development: The Cautionary Tale of Colonial Burma
Description: Abstract: "Burmese colonial history suggests that a legal system cannot operate independently from the felt needs of the people who are supposed to obey the law. Despite a monopoly of force for many decades, the British failed to create a sustainable legal system in Burma. Colonial status shifted Burma?s economic role from subsistence agriculture to the generation of large-scale exports. By undermining the traditional Burmese legal system and substituting Western international standards of property rights, enforceability of contracts, and an independent judiciary — all attributes of what some consider to be the ?Rule of Law”— the legal system amplified and channelled destructive economic and social forces rather than containing them. This paper examines traditional Burmese law, the administration of law in British Burma, and the consequences of the new legal system for the country and its own stability. The paper concludes by suggesting lessons for Myanmar today, and for the study of the ?Rule of Law." ..... Keywords: Rule of Law, colonial law, law and custom, law and development, colonial administration, Burma, Myanmar
Creator/author: Thomas H. Stanton
Source/publisher: Asian Journal of Law and Society / FirstView Article / January 2014, pp 1 - 1
Date of publication: 2014-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 251.98 KB
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Title: The mean streets of Hlaing Tharyar
Description: "...While all-out street brawls might not be an everyday occurrence in Hlaing Tharyar, the township is awash with crime ? everything from fistfights, robberies, rapes and extortion to assaults and home detentions by lenders against debtors. A senior police officer from the Hlaing Tharyar Myoma Police Station said some of these cases are brought to the attention of police, but many others are ?solved” by calling in local toughs who rely on intimidation. Among the obstacles to maintaining rule of law in the township are the huge growth in population, and an insufficient police force. Last year?s census identified 684,700 residents, about half of whom are squatting illegally on land they do not own or rent. Many of these squatters are thought to have migrated to the area in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008..."
Creator/author: Khin Wine Phyu Phyu
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times"
Date of publication: 2015-08-28
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Law and conflict in Myanmar
Description: "...in Myanmar, while law has at times been used to manage and avoid conflict, it can also exacerbate it. This is evident when looking at three areas of legal reform between 2010 and 2015: structural, economic and social reforms. Structural reforms established the country?s new constitutional and legal system. Many of these laws were intended to avoid conflict between institutions, primarily by giving the President and the executive significant control, including over the courts. And while many offices and institutions may sound new, they are rather old institutions or positions that have been rebranded, such as references to the former chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) being replaced with the President. Further, the new laws passed since 2010 continue to subordinate the courts to executive and parliamentary control. In fact, the courts are the branch of the government that has been least affected by the transition process. Meanwhile, Myanmar?s economic reforms have been geared towards greater foreign investment and the market economy, including the banking sector, the establishment of special economic zones, and potential reform of the Company Law. These economic reforms generally prevent individuals from challenging government decisions in court, and have also generated conflict between local stakeholders and foreign investors. One of the first and most significant laws passed in terms of economic reforms was the Foreign Investment Law. This raised tension between local and foreign interests include rights to land use, tax concessions, and standards in terms of labour requirements for skilled positions..."
Creator/author: Melissa Crouch
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
Date of publication: 2015-08-11
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Road to democracy under repair?
Description: "...Myanmar?s political transition is an unusual phenomenon: it is self-made, without any external agency supervising, monitoring or enforcing it. It also derives its power, and authority from the popular support it generates, with or without elections to legitimise it, because of the wider political support it enjoys for the moment. Any ?incentives” for those in real control to continue the transition are contained within the process, either in terms of positive options that become available (such as substantial new trade or investment or funding), or in terms of negative options that disappear (lifting of political sanctions, economic sanctions, and inclusion in regional development arrangements, rather than exclusion). The other main characteristic of Myanmar?s transition is that it is tolerated and in principle supported by those giving up power ? the military ? who can allow it to continue, or who can block it, partially or totally. In all of this, external influences play an important part, but are not critical; they can be supportive, collaborative and expect considerable benefits for their own interests, but they should anticipate a perhaps less than perfect ?Myanmar” solution, and cannot count on imposing their own wishes or creating ?mirror” copies of their own socio-economic paradigms. In Myanmar, new institutions are being established but are not necessarily yet fully tested; and old institutions are being (slowly) transformed, but are often still incapable of producing the hoped for results. In such circumstances, it can hardly be surprising that many of Myanmar?s ?reforms” since 2011 are incomplete, are not delivering all the outcomes hoped for, or in many instances, have not yet even begun to be carried out in any concrete way. Some changes can be implemented by announcement alone, and might rely on general goodwill or on willingness to give things ?a go” to see whether or not they can work reasonably well..."
Creator/author: Trevor Wilson
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
Date of publication: 2015-07-14
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: The governance palimpsest: order maintenance in Southeast Burma
Description: Focus on Karen refugees....."The force of habit, the awe of traditional command and a sentimental attachment to it, the desire to satisfy public opinion - all combine to make custom be obeyed for its own sake. In this the ?savages? do not differ from the members of any self-contained community with a limited horizon, whether this be an Eastern European ghetto, an Oxford college, or a Fundamentalist Middle West community. But love of tradition, conformism and the sway of custom account but to a very partial extent for obedience to rules among dons, savages, peasants, or Junkers. [. . .] in the main these rules are followed because their practical utility is recognized by reason and testified by experience." (Malinowski 1926).....Re the attached sales flyer for the book, the publishers say that a paperback version will be out in July or August.
Creator/author: Kirsten Mcconnachie
Source/publisher: "Governing Refugees - Justice, Order and Legal Pluralism" (Chapter 4)
Date of publication: 2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 618.94 KB
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Title: The struggle for ownership of justice
Description: "We lawyers just cannot help being Darwinian. We simply cannot shake off our assumption that some legal cultures are more developed than others. We prefer written law to oral law; we are happier with professional judges than with people?s rough justice; and — need I say? — we just love cultures that have their own lawyers.".....Re the attached sales flyer for the book, the publishers say that a paperback version will be out in July or August. (Andrew Huxley 2011)
Creator/author: Kirsten Mcconnachie
Source/publisher: "Governing Refugees - Justice, Order and Legal Pluralism" (Chapter 6)
Date of publication: 2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 599.05 KB
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Title: Constitutional Reform in Myanmar: Priorities and Prospects for Amendment
Description: "...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:..."
Creator/author: Naina Patel, Alex Goodman, Naomi Snider
Source/publisher: Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law (Working Paper No 2014/01)
Date of publication: 2014-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 768.71 KB
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Title: MYANMAR Country Profile prepared by the ICJ Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Description: "Myanmar has thus far failed to ratify most human rights treaties. Judicial independence is provided for in law, but not respected in practice. In particular, the degree of control exercised by the Executive over the appointment process and the lack of transparency over criteria for selection and promotion, insufficient security of tenure, executive control over the budget and insufficient pay and training are inconsistent with international standards. Lawyers lack a self-governing professional body that can defend the profession?s integrity and professional interests. Although their independence has increased substantially since 2011, on-going challenges remain, such as interference in politically sensitive and criminal cases. Structural problems such as the poor state of legal education have yet to be addressed."
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists - Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Date of publication: 2014-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Burma and the Road Forward: Lessons from Next Door and Possible Avenues Towards Constitutional and Democratic Development
Description: "The chapter of authoritarian rule may finally be ending in Burma?s complicated narrative. The Burmese government has taken visible steps towards democratic reform. Despite reports of military control and intimidation at the polls,the country transitioned to civilian rule in 20103 after fifty years of control by a military junta. The government also released the country?s preeminent democratic leader and icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been on house arrest sporadically since 1989. Rapid political reforms soon followed. The ability to reconcile Burma?s political history and transition to a democracy will be a challenging one. A successful transformation requires more than legal formalism; legal formalism cannot work without the development of a civil society. However, legal formalism, as Suu Kyi has urged, ensures a rule of law that will allow Burmese citizens, including minority groups, to protect themselves from their government?s historical abuse of power. This Comment discusses how the expansion of legal rights for individuals and minorities is the direct way for Burma to secure a democratic future..."
Creator/author: Connie Ng
Source/publisher: Santa Clara Law Review (Vol 53, No. 1)
Date of publication: 2013-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2014-08-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 198.43 KB
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Title: Thin Rule of Law or Un-Rule of Law in Myanmar?
Description: "...In this article I examine the rule-of-law language and practices of the state in Myanmar in terms of the ?thin? rule of law, which is sometimes described as ?rule by law.? I am not advocating this type of rule of law. Rather, I am interested in how it can be used to explore the sort of authoritarian legality found in Myanmar, and to advance more critical study of Asian governments? stated commitments to the rule of law..."
Creator/author: Nick Cheesman
Source/publisher: Pacific Affairs: Volume 82, No. 4 Winter 2009/2010
Date of publication: 2010-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-08-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 77.12 KB
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Title: THE RULE OF LAW AND COMMERCIAL LITIGATION IN MYANMAR
Description: Abstract: "After nearly thirty years of self imposed isolation, Myanmar has re- emerged as a significant potential destination for foreign investment. One of the key attractions of Myanmar as a destination for foreign investment is its legal system and historical commitment to the rule of law. With ASEAN membership and increasing levels of foreign investment in Myanmar, use of its legal system by foreign investors and their counsel has grown. The aim of this article is to outline, for both investors and legal professionals in other countries throughout the region, Myanmar?s legal system and its practical operation in the area of commercial litigation, including the enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards"
Creator/author: Alec Christie
Source/publisher: Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal Association
Date of publication: 2000-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 304.28 KB
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Title: BURMA: Criminalization of rights defenders and impunity for police
Description: The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns in the strongest terms the announcement of the commander of the Sagaing Region Police Force, Myanmar, that the police will arrest and charge eight human rights defenders whom it blames for inciting protests against the army-backed copper mine project at the Letpadaung Hills, in Monywa. The commission also condemns the latest round of needless police violence against demonstrators there.
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
Date of publication: 2013-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Myanmar Rule of Law Assessment
Description: Executive Summary:- Background: • In June 2012, Perseus Strategies and New Perimeter, in partnership with the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, initiated a broad rule of law assessment of Myanmar • Upon completion of this assessment, New Perimeter and Perseus Strategies will launch a program where potentially thousands of pro bono hours from the global law firm DLA Piper will be invested into a focused project to advance law reform efforts in Myanmar... Current situation: • On November 7, 2010, Myanmar held its first election in 20 years – much of the reaction to the reforms instituted by President Thein Sein, inaugurated in March 2011, reflects the hope that the country can break free of its authoritarian past that involves widespread human-rights abuses • Following by-elections in April 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi has joined the government as an elected MP, along with several dozen representatives of the National League for Democracy and ethnic political parties • Major reform efforts have been initiated by the government across an array of areas, which has reinforced these hopes, but there remains a large gap between public perception and the reality of the impact of reform efforts on the ground • There is a strong consensus across the political spectrum that advancing the rule of law and law reform efforts are a top priority, but the government, opposition, and other parties have different views as to the sequencing of specific efforts... Key findings: • President Thein Sein and his allies in the government are making genuine reforms; however, many government institutions are quite fragile and the role of the military remains opaque • For these changes to be permanent and irreversible, constitutional reform is important, but it is unclear if the government will undertake such efforts in the near term • Law reform is being implemented from the top‑down, but these efforts must be driven into government bureaucracies and down to the local level, and coupled with major grassroots efforts to educate people about their rights • The judicial system is in need of large‑scale reform – corruption is a serious issue and decisions are sometimes made by the executive branch • The parliament will be a significant player in law reform efforts, but requires major investment to build its capacity so its contributions can be meaningful • Myanmar requires unprecedented effort to create a criminal defense and legal aid system, reconstitute the Bar Association, and rebuild the legal education system • The Myanmar National Human Rights Commission has potential, but should be reconstituted by the parliament as an independent government agency, in accordance with the Paris Principles • The government has signed several new treaties, but reform efforts could also be advanced through the signing and ratification of the Int?l Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Int?l Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment (CAT), which the government has indicated its intention to do.
Source/publisher: DLA-Piper (New Perimeter), Perseus Strategies, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Date of publication: 2013-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-03-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.28 MB
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Title: The Rule of Law in Myanmar: Challenges and Prospects
Description: Report of the International Bar Association?s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) Supported by the IBAHRI Trust and the Open Society Foundations.....Contents: Executive Summary... 1. Introduction: 1.1 The IBAHRI delegation and its mandate; 1.2 Interviews and consultations; 1.3 The rule of law: an overview... 2. Background and History: 2.1 Myanmar in facts and figures; 2.2 Myanmar before 1988; 2.3 Myanmar in the two decades after the 1988 coup; 2.4 The 2008 Constitution; 2.5 Myanmar since 2008... 3. The Civil Sphere: Social, Economic, Cultural, Civil and Political Rights: 3.1 Background; 3.2 Current legal structure; 3.3 Findings; Access to courts and the administration of justice; Freedom of expression, association and assembly; Ethnic conflicts; 3.4 Conclusion ... 4. The Political Sphere: the Branches of Government: 4.1 Background; 4.2 Current legal structure; 4.3 Findings; 4.4 Conclusion... 5. The Legislative Sphere: Parliament and the Reform Process: 5.1 Background; 5.2 The structure of the legislature; 5.3 Findings; The Bill Committee of the Lower House; The Complaints Committee of the Upper House; Other perspectives; 5.4 Conclusion... 6. The Myanmar National Human Rights Commission: 6.1 Background; 6.2 Current legal structure; 6.3 Findings; 6.4 Conclusion... 7. The Military Sphere: the Role of the Army: 7.1 Background; 7.2 Current legal structure; 7.3 Findings; 7.4 Conclusion... 8. The Judicial Sphere (I): Courts and Judges: 8.1 Background; 8.2 Current legal structure; 8.3 Findings; 8.4 Conclusion... 9. The Judicial Sphere (II): the Legal Profession: 9.1 Background; 9.2 Current legal structure; 9.3 Findings; Former and current lawyers; The Attorney General and Justice Soe Nyunt; 9.4 Conclusion... 10. Conclusions and Recommendations... Annexes: A. General Assembly Resolution 66/102 on the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels... B. The Peaceful Demonstration and Gathering Act 2012... C. Principles Relating to the Status of National Institutions (The Paris Principles)... D. UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary ... E. UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers... F. IBA Standards for the Independence of the Legal Profession... G. UN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors... H. International Association of Prosecutors? Standards of Professional Responsibility and Statement of the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors... I. The Venice Commission Report?s Checklist for Evaluating the Rule of Law in Single States... List of Acronyms
Source/publisher: International Bar Association?s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
Date of publication: 2012-12-20
Date of entry/update: 2012-12-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 408.75 KB
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Title: BURMA: Continued use of military-issued instructions denies rights
Description: "Much has been made in recent times of the continued use in Burma of antiquated and anti-human rights laws from the country?s decades of military rule, as well as from the colonial era. While legislators discuss the amendment or revocation of some laws, and the issue is debated in the public domain, much less is said of the superstructure of military-introduced administrative orders that officials around the country continue to employ in their day-to-day activities, invariably in order to circumscribe or deny human rights. Among these orders are some being used to restrict or prevent access to land of people who rightfully occupy or cultivate the land, as in the case of villagers from some 26 villages affected by the copper mining project in the Letpadaung Mountain range in Sagaing Region, on which the Asian Human Rights Commission has previously spoken (AHRC-PRL-044-2012). The AHRC has obtained copies of a series of orders issued by Zaw Moe Aung, chief administrator of Sarlingyi Township, where villagers have been fighting since mid-2012 against the expansion of copper mining in the region onto their farmlands. The orders, issued under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, prohibit villagers from access to their farmlands or any form of use of the farmlands, such as for the grazing of cattle. The latest orders expired at the end of October; however, people in the region expect that they will be renewed, or that in any event they will simply be denied access to their land, which is being taken over by an army-owned company and its partner..."
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
Date of publication: 2012-11-05
Date of entry/update: 2012-11-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: The ?Rule of Law? in Burma
Description: "Over the past several months, Burma?s pro-democracy icon and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has constantly repeated the refrain that the government must establish the ?rule of law.? That?s a worthwhile goal, as well as a necessary achievement if Burma is going to raise the quality of life and standard of living for its 54 million long-oppressed and impoverished people. In the words of William H. Neukom, the president of the World Justice Project (WJP), ?The rule of law is the foundation for communities of opportunity and equity—it is the predicate for the eradication of poverty, violence, corruption, pandemics and other threats to civil society.? But what does the ?rule of law? mean?..."
Creator/author: Stephen Bloom
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
Date of publication: 2012-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2012-07-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 94.26 KB
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Title: LSE discussion roundtable on "Rule of Law" with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Full Video)
Description: "Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi told an LSE audience that fairness and freedom can only be restored to her country under the rule of law. Speaking on her first visit to the UK for 24 years, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said that unity in Burma and a new constitution could only be achieved within a legal framework. ?This is what we all need - unless we see that justice is to be done, we cannot proceed to genuine democracy?, she told an audience of students, staff and visitors. She said that she condemned violence wherever it occurred, but that a full understanding of its causes was key: ?Resolving conflict is not about condemnation, it?s about finding the roots, the causes of that conflict and how they can be resolved in the best way possible.? The leader of the National League of Democracy in Burma, who has spent much of her life under house arrest on the orders of the country?s military rulers, was speaking as part of a round-table discussion at LSE featuring academic and legal experts. LSE Director Judith Rees reminded listeners that the event was taking place on Aung San Suu Kyi?s 67th birthday and that everyone wanted to celebrate that she was able to enjoy the day in freedom. Professor Rees said: ?Your trip to the UK will go down in history and I?m sure that it?s an emotional trip for you.? She also invited the crowd to sing Happy Birthday, adding: ?It?s a tribute not just to you but to all those who have campaigned for freedom in Burma.? Alex Peters-Day, General Secretary of LSE?s Students? Union, presented the guest with a surprise present - a photograph of her late father taken in London in 1947 - and with an LSE baseball cap, a traditional gift for visiting leaders. The panel discussion also involved LSE professors Mary Kaldor and Christine Chinkin, Burmese activist and visiting fellow Dr Maung Zarni, Oxford professor Nicola Lacey and barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. Professor Kaldor ended the event by passing on a question from a student who?d asked Aung San Suu Kyi how she had found her strength to continue her campaigning. She answered: ?It?s all of you, and people like you, who give me the strength to continue. And I suppose I have a stubborn streak in me.? "..."... Speaker(s): Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Nicola Lacey, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Dr Maung Zarni Recorded on 19 June 2012 in Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is Chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Member of Parliament of Kawhmu constituency in Burma. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991. Christine Chinkin, FBA, is currently Professor in International Law at the London School of Economics. She has widely published on issues of international human rights law, law, including as co-author of The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis. Nicola Lacey holds a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, and is Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory at the University of Oxford, having previously held a chair at the London School of Economics. Nicola?s research is in criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular focus on comparative and historical scholarship. In 2011 she won the Hans Sigrist Prize for scholarship on the rule of law in modern societies. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC is a barrister; he is a signatory of Harvard?s Crimes in Burma report. Sir Geoffrey is a member of Burma Justice Committee and works with NGO?s and other groups seeking international recognition of crimes committed in conflicts; represents government and similar interests at the ICC. A Burmese native, Dr Zarni is a veteran founder of the Free Burma Coalition, one of the Internet?s first and largest human rights campaigns and a Visiting Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE. His forthcoming book, provisionally titled Life under the Boot: 50-years of Military Dictatorship in Burma, will be published by Yale University Press. Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development and Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at LSE. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars. "
Source/publisher: Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) via Youtube
Date of publication: 2012-06-19
Date of entry/update: 2012-06-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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