Misrule of Law: Burma Government
Leaps Over Legal Process
Asian Tribune
By Aung San Suu Kyi
As I understand it, a kangaroo court is so
called because it is a burlesque
performance where the process of the law takes
heart-stopping leaps and bounds.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the entry on
kangaroos in the Encyclopedia Britannica
to see how far these marsupial mammals can
clear in a leap. Apparently
the record is 13.5 meters.This
is far superior to the Olympics long- jump record.
It is no surprise then that the erratic
course of justice in a kangaroo court is
outside the bounds of normal human conduct.
I have written about the challenges that
political dissidents in
Everybody committed to taking an active
part in the endeavor to return the country
to democracy has to be prepared to go to
prison at any time. It usually happens
in the middle of the night, appropriately,
as there can be fewer deeds more akin
to darkness than that of depriving innocent
people of a normal, healthy life.
The ones most vulnerable to arrest are
members of the NLD.
Many of them are already seasoned jail
veterans who, at casual moments,
exchange prison yarns and instruct the as yet
uninitiated on such matters
as the kind of treatment they can expect at
the interrogation sessions and
what they should take with them when the
banging on the door comes: change
of clothing, soap, toothpaste and
toothbrush, medicines, a blanket or two,
etcetera, all in a plastic bag. Nothing so respectable as a knapsack or suitcase
is permitted. And do not be fooled if the
people who turn up at the door, usually
without a warrant, say that they will only be
keeping you for a few days.
That could well translate into a 20-year
sentence.
When U Win Htein, a key member of my
office staff, was arrested one night
last May, he had a bag already packed. He had
previously spent six years in
Insein Jail: He was one of the people
taken away from my house in 1989 on
the day I was detained and he was released
only in February 1995.
When U Win Htein asked those who had come
to take him away whether they had
an arrest warrant, they replied that it was
not necessary as charges had already
been moved against him and his sentence had
been decided. So much for the
concept of the law that deems a person innocent
until proven guilty. Section 340 (1)
of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides
that " any person accused of an
offense before a criminal court, or against who
proceedings are instituted under
this code, in any such court, may of right be
defended by a pleader." This basic
right to counsel is systematically denied to
political prisoners in
They are not even allowed to make contact
with their families.
The authorities generally refuse to give
any information on detainees who have
not yet been tried. The NLD and the families
of political prisoners have to make
strenuous inquiries to find out where they are,
with what "crime"they would be
charged and when and where the trials would take
place. Usually the trials of
political prisoners are conducted in a special
courthouse within the jail precincts.
Last month, a number of political
prisoners were tried in Insein Jail. When the
NLD heard that U Win Htein and some others
were going to be produced at court
on a certain day, a lawyer was sent to
defend them. The Special Branch officer
at the jail questioned by the lawyer said he
did not know anything about a trial.
But the trial took place while the lawyer
was waiting at the gate and continued
after he left in the afternoon. The next week,
a number of lawyers again went
to Insein Jail, accompanied by the families
of the prisoners, on the day they had
heard the trial was to continue. This time they
managed to get into the prison
courthouse. However, they were only allowed to
cross-examine four of the
24 witnesses for the
prosecution.
The next morning, the lawyers and the
families of the prisoners arrived in Insein Jail
at
around the jail entrance was full of security
personnel and all the shops along the
road were shut. The lawyers were refused
entry. They were told the sentence
would only be passed at the end of the month
and were asked to leave. However,
as the magistrate concerned with the case
had been seen at the
Magistrate's Court the lawyers were
convinced the trial was scheduled to proceed
within a matter of hours and continued to wait
outside the jail.
The magistrate eventually arrived and
entered the prison precincts at around
to the
The magistrate, very nervous and
surrounded by security personnel, would only
say that an application should be made to
copy the records of the court proceedings.
Some days later the government media
announced that U Win Htein and others
had been given seven-year prison sentences
each. The sight of kangaroos bounding
away across an open prairie can sometimes be
rather beautiful. The spectacle
of the process of law bounding away from
accepted norms of justice is very ugly
at all times.