Category Archives: Burma

October 10, 2011 · 17:02

Burma’s HR Commission now open for business

According to DVB, Burma’s new Human Rights Commission is now accepting complaints. It’s perhaps somewhat surprising that the commission will hear and decide actual cases, however it is in line with President Thein Sein’s mini-glasnost. Cases already filed in the regular courts will not be transferred, but from this point on the commission should be the primary point institution for human rights cases. Some critics worry that the commission will essentially act as a Trojan horse, turning on complainants once they reveal themselves to the commission. Indeed, Burma’s courts have often “blamed the victim” by allowing government officials to countersue complainants for defamation (the Su Su Nwe case was a particularly blatant example of this). However, the commission could also represent the new government’s attempt to bypass the corrupted judiciary completely.

In other interesting news, the Pyithu Hluttaw passed a law that would allow peaceful protests. Interestingly, according to Myanmar Times, the Hluttaw Bill Committee struck down one amendment for not conforming to the 2008 Constitution. This might be a sign that this committee will begin exercising legislative constitutional review even before cases reach the Constitutional Tribunal.

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Filed under Burma, human rights, Human Rights Commission, Myanmar

September 19, 2011 · 20:10

A new issue for Myanmar’s Supreme Court – the environment

I’ve often mentioned Myanmar’s Supreme Court on this blog in the context of judicial independence and political opposition. Recently, several Burmese environmentalists and politicians brought a petition before the Court asking it to halt the Myitsone Dam in Kachin State. It seems the plaintiffs are asking the Court to order the government to release more information about the proposed impacts of the dam (writ of quo warrant) and to halt construction of the dam until a cost-benefit analysis is conducted (writ of prohibition). According to Mizzima, independent MP Win Cho said, “If MPs cannot get real information about the Myitsone Dam construction and the possibility of the extinction of Irrawaddy River before the parliament ends, we will file suit.”

I don’t recall any other cases in the Burmese Supreme Court quite like this one. However, it does coincide with National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent emphasis on environmental issues. Indeed, Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, recently proposed that environmental issues would be a safer issue for Burma’s political opposition. However, I don’t yet have any idea how the Supreme Court treats environmental issues or whether this petition will have more success. While environmental issues might not be as controversial as political prisoners, the political elite will likely not permit challenges to flagship infrastructure projects to be litigated in court.

UPDATE: It seems the government is split on the Myitsone Dam issue as well, with Thein Sein opposing it. Irrawaddy has an article highlighting some of the interesting – albeit heresy – debate.

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Filed under Burma, environmental, Myanmar, Supreme Court

September 13, 2011 · 02:39

Trials of lawyer

The Irrawaddy has another rare look at the life of human rights lawyers in Burma. In today’s edition, there is short article about Pho Phyu, a lawyer who has worked on several human rights cases in Myanmar, from land confiscation victims to child soldiers. Pho Phyu has been arrested several times, most recently when he failed to appear before the court for a trial hearing. He was released when two of his clients – farmers whose land had been confiscated – raised the money to pay bail.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of political science literature about the role of lawyers in fostering judicial independence. However, Charles Epp (whose books are pictured here) claims activist lawyers are at least as a important as activist judges. The demand side for the rule of law is a critical and often overlooked component.

It’s certainly too early to predict anything like a rights revolution in Myanmar. However, it should be interesting to see how Burma’s human rights lawyers use the new Constitutional Tribunal – if they do at all.

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Filed under Burma, lawyers, Myanmar

August 26, 2011 · 16:09

Reinstating Lawyers

In news somewhat related to my last post, the Democratic Voice of Burma reports that several Burmese lawyers who had been disbarred for political reasons are now seeking reinstatement to the bar. The article claims that over 20 lawyers had their licenses revoked since the SPDC came to power in 1988. Aung Thein, a lawyer affiliated with the National League for Democracy, argued, “These lawyers were given prison sentences on political grounds have also lost their licenses – so it’s like we got two separate punishments in just one case.”

On the one hand, it’s certainly not uncommon for lawyers in other countries to lose their licenses upon being convicted of a crime that reflects upon their moral bearings. However, U Aung Thein’s statement makes two points. First, the crimes for which Aung Thein and his colleagues received sentences were political, not moral. If anything, their support for legal rights should speak well to their moral bearings. Second, in Myanmar the government revoked their licenses, rather than a bar association. Moreover, the lawyers did not get a chance to appeal the decision.

Politics aside, the ultimate tragedy may well be that, as one of the disbarred lawyers notes, “[Law] is our career profession – just like teachers. We are not rich people and having lost our lawyers licenses made a lot of difficulties for our survival.”

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Filed under Burma, legal profession, Myanmar

August 25, 2011 · 03:54

Change or more of the same?

The Asian Legal Resource Centre has submitted a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council criticizing the lack of progress under Myanmar’s new parliamentary government. One paragraph deals specifically with the criminal justice system:

Criminal justice: Structural changes to the judiciary under the 2008 Constitution have not been accompanied by any changes, or any evidence of intended changes, in the judicial system’s actual operations. On the contrary, it continues to be as closed and obscured from public view as before, perhaps even more so. For instance, at time of writing still no biographies or details have been made known publicly of the new Supreme Court justices, among whom three are believed to have come from the armed forces, two others from the civil administration. Legal professionals have doubts about the background and abilities of these persons, yet they too have no detailed knowledge about them, let alone the opportunity to discuss such matters. Meanwhile, legal professionals also say that the amount of corruption in the system is growing exponentially, as the costs of living rise and more and more judges and lawyers look to whatever opportunities they can to make as much money as they can. In some courts, lawyers estimate that up to 70 per cent of cases are decided in part or whole through the payment of money. This situation will continue to worsen. Simultaneously, no evidence exists to suggest plans for any meaningful reform to the highly abusive and corrupt police force. [emphasis mine].

First thing to note is that I’m not the only person having trouble finding out more about the current Supreme Court and Constitutional Tribunal justices. More substantively, ALRC primarily criticizes corruption within the system. While Myanmar’s government has certainly not done nearly enough to tackle corruption, regular readers of this blog will hopefully have come to learn that no Southeast Asian country has a monopoly on judicial corruption. However, if President Thein Sein was serious in his inaugural speech that his administration would combat corruption, one can only hope that somebody on his team looks at best practices from other countries or at least consider establishing a judicial commission to vet judicial nominees and investigate allegations of corruption.

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Filed under Burma, criminal procedure, Myanmar