The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has hailed a Nov. 9 ruling by the Mayangone Township Court that found that the death of a man in police custody had not been natural. AHRC said the ruling, which it recently obtained, could be “a landmark case” as the post-mortem inquest would logically be followed by an investigation into which police officer was responsible for the death. “Very rarely [in Burma] have police officers been held to account for their crimes, and least of all, those committed on persons in custody,” it said. Myo Myint Swe, 19, was arrested for the murder of a woman in June and died in custody in July.Stay tuned for more about this potentially landmark case.
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).
Monday, December 17, 2012
Favorable ruling re police custody (Myanmar/Burma)
As I've noted several times, aside from the Constitutional Tribunal, Myanmar's judicial system hasn't become notably more progressive or activist under President Thein Sein's government. However, the Mayangone Township Court recently issued a decision questioning police brutality. According to a summary from Irrawaddy:
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