According to The Myanmar Times, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is filing a libel suit. Not as one might think against the government and its years of slandering her, but rather against her brother, U Aung San Oo. The two notoriously don't get along and have disputed ownership of Daw Suu's house on 54 University Ave. Recently, U Aung San Oo published an article in the Monitor in which he claimed that he won the dispute, even though the more recent case hasn't been resolved. The Rangoon Region High Court decided to accept the case last week.
The case is interesting for two reasons. First, I think this is the first time a court has accepted a lawsuit initiated by Suu Kyi herself. Second, as I've mentioned before, Southeast Asian leaders love libel law (how's that for alliteration). I don't think Suu Kyi is coming anywhere close to Lee Kuan Yew, but I also haven't heard her talk about the role of libel law in political life. How far would she go in balancing the right to information with the right to privacy? If I have another chance to ask her questions, I'll try to get that one in.
Critics agree that much of Southeast Asia desperately needs judicial reform and rule of law. Yet, there is remarkably little comparative scholarship on law and legal institutions in the region. In this blog, I'll follow constitutional developments in Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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