Rule of Law Inside Out in Myanmar (original) (raw)

Rediscovering ‘Law’ in Myanmar: A Review of Scholarship on the Legal System of Myanmar

23(3) Pacific Rim Law and Policy Review 543-575, 2014

Myanmar’s legal system is an understudied area in the academic field of Asian Legal Studies. This article aims to provide a map of legal scholarship in Myanmar that can be built on in the future. It identifies the key issues and arguments that have driven research on law in Myanmar, and the central academics whose oeuvre of publications have sustained the field. It is organized around four broad themes: custom, religion, and the law; public law and governance; corporate law; and the politics of law. It suggests that in order to build the next generation of legal scholarship, future research on Myanmar law must be grounded in its social, political, and historical context.

Opposing the rule of law: How Myanmar's courts make law and order - (Chapter 7 for download)

2015

All public assemblies that power holders have not organised or endorsed themselves pose a latent political threat to the domi- nant group. Political domination contains an implicit assumption that subordinates mobilise only when authorised. Hence, succes- sive governments in Myanmar, and before it, Burma, have been persistently concerned to manage, control, and prohibit public assemblies. The British colonial government assigned public assembly an inher- ently criminal quality. The colonial template for its management through courts and police has remained over subsequent decades, but the manner of its application has changed. This chapter explores that change across three events of large-scale protest under successive mili- tary governments, in 1974, 1988, and 2007. Concentrating on events during 2007, it discusses how protestors inadvertently crossed a thresh- old into what Giorgio Agamben describes as a ‘zone of anomie’, which is neither fully inside nor outside the juridical order, but is a zone where legal determinations are deactivated. In 2007, two extrajuridical institutions realised the anomic zone that enveloped protestors. A proxy police force, ‘the gang’, enabled the movement of people into spaces where officials could detain and inves- tigate them without ordinary rules applying. These spaces I designate, reading Agamben, as ‘the camp’...

Introduction : Myanmar, Law Reform and Asian Legal Studies

Hart Publishing eBooks, 2014

MELISSA CROUCH AND TIM LINDSEY L EGAL SCHOLARS TOOK their eyes off Myanmar for too long. Huxley (2004: 94) once observed that 'Myanmar law has died of neglect' and the same might, in fact, be said of sustained legal scholarship on Myanmar, whether by local or foreign scholars. Opportunities have now emerged, however, for law reform that even five years ago was unthinkable-a resurrection of law in Myanmar seems to have begun. The current political transition has, for example, reinvigorated engagement between the legal profession and the government, including the Parliament and the Attorney General's Office. It has also created room for connections between local actors and international law firms, non-government organisations and a range of other groups. This has led to multiple and often overlapping conversations about the possibilities for change in a shifting institutional landscape. The resulting scramble for information by legal practitioners and international development agencies is a reflection of both the practical challenges for access to information about law in Myanmar and the lack of scholarship on law in that country. This is not to discount the important work of the handful of legal historians or political scientists who have worked on the legal system of Myanmar, 1 nor dismiss the challenges of legal research-particularly empirical research-prior to 2011. It is also not to deny that a large range of legal materials are now available online in the Burmese language (see Crouch and Cheesman, this volume). Nevertheless, there is a pressing need for more informed scholarly analysis on the legal system of Myanmar, not least by scholars from Myanmar. This volume is a first attempt to begin this task. It aims to provide basic information about law in contemporary Myanmar and lay a foundation for further research. This chapter is intended to serve as a guide to the volume as a whole. It highlights key themes and debates in each chapter and identifies points of commonality across the chapters. Each chapter is designed to be read on its own but this introductory chapter directs the reader to larger trends and patterns in the law reform process as it was unfolding in Myanmar at the time of writing (late 2013). We frame this introduction within a broader comparative context, one that reflects the expansion of the depth and breadth of the field of Asian legal studies in recent

The Layers of Legal Development in Myanmar

Melissa Crouch (2014) ‘The Layers of Legal Development in Myanmar’ in Melissa Crouch and Tim Lindsey (eds) Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar. Oxford: Hart Publishing

This chapter provides an overview of the development of the legal system in Myanmar, as background for the chapters that follow in this volume. It considers the origins of the law in Myanmar, the key influences on the development of the modern system and the direction it has taken. It seeks to go beyond the 'common law' label to consider the development of Burmese Buddhist law, the colonial legal system, the post-independence period, socialism, and military rule. It identifies that law has often been used by force across these political eras, and that the relatively shallow roots of current legal institutions, including a weak judiciary, present particular challenges for the uncertain future of law in Myanmar.

Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar

2014

This edited volume includes chapters on a wide range of legal issues in Myanmar. For more information see: http://www.hartpub.co.uk/books/details.asp?isbn=9781849465977

What does the rule of law have to do with democratization (in Myanmar)?

South East Asia Research, 2014

Talk of the rule of law is today ubiquitous in Myanmar. But what does the rule of law mean? And what does it have to do with the country’s nascent democratization? One way to conceptualize the rule of law is in terms of substantive legal equality. Burmese farmers and activists mobilizing through the lexicon of law to defend agricultural land against intrusive state projects engage with the rule of law in this sense. Another way is as a language of public and state security. Demands for the rule of law in response to violence in Myanmar’s west correspond with this usage. Whereas in established democracies the rule of law as equality complements the rule of law as security, in a democratizing state the two are not necessarily compatible. The rule of law as an idea associated with substantive legal equality contributes to Myanmar’s democratization, whereas when associated with public and state security it potentially undermines that democratization.

‘A Short Research Guide to Myanmar’s Legal System’ (co-authored with Nick Cheesman)

Melissa Crouch and Nick Cheesman (2014) ‘A Short Research Guide to Myanmar’s Legal System’, in Melissa Crouch and Tim Lindsey (eds) Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014

This chapter is designed to assist students, scholars and practitioners conducting research on the legal system of Myanmar. It provides a guide to primary sources available in English and Burmese, including court decisions, digests, laws and journals.