Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar ed. by Melissa Crouch and Tim Lindsey, and: Metamorphosis: Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar ed. by Renaud Egreteau and Francois Robinne (review)

The fast-changing political dynamics in Myanmar defy any attempt to provide timely academic research that will aid laymen and scholars alike in understanding the transition of this former enigma in a cocoon. Two edited volumes now fill the oft-lamented vacuum of academic and policy analysis on Myanmar’s trajectory of political change.

The twenty-chapter Law, Society and Transition in Myanmar, edited by Melissa Crouch and Tim Lindsey, is the first comprehensive collection to examine Myanmar’s legal system and the broader political implications of legal reform. Readers should treat this as a one-stop resource to understanding how law, history and societal life in Myanmar collide with and influence the country’s political development and transformation. The volume delivers on its promise to fill the information and understanding gap on the historical legacy and key issues that legal reform in contemporary Myanmar requires. The editors rightly acknowledge the neglect of legal scholarship on and in Myanmar up to the present. The compendium is a welcome effort by legal scholars to remedy this shortcoming, taking advantage of Myanmar’s political and administrative reforms initiated in 2011–12 which have led to a “resurrection” of the study and interpretation of law.

The introductory chapters (1 to 3) lay out the legal landscape and the nascent law reform process that started in 2013, as well as analysing the intersect between social and legal life in Burma/Myanmar that have added extra layers of complexity to an already complex system. Even the term “common law” in Myanmar does not carry the same meaning as it does elsewhere. From Andrew Huxley’s discussion of the influence of Buddhism on Burmese law in the past, and the lasting impact of not just colonial legacies but also the post-1962 coup attempts to remodel the legal system by the military; to Nicholas Cheesman’s analysis of the treatment of “bodies” that offended or disrupted order in colonial Burma, readers are afforded a valuable insight into how present attitudes have been shaped towards race, ethnicity and (legal) identity. This is the Gordian knot that Myanmar faces today. Contrasting with the Burma Law Reports of the past, Dominic Nardi and Lwin Moe’s closer look at the Myanmar Law Reports of 2007–11 reveal the nature of what the present-day courts deal with, and highlight the judiciary’s lack of independence.

The circumstances under which Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution was ratified, and the clauses that a) provide a role for the military in the legislature and b) place stringent limitations on eligibility for presidential nomination, are widely known. Contextualizing the Constitution however, is a challenge rarely met. David William’s insightful overview of the 2008 Constitution and its flaws, and the comparative analysis of similar transitory experiences by Anne Dziedic and Cheryl Saunders, achieve this task well. Melissa Crouch brings the examination of the Burma and Myanmar Law Reports further by assessing the reintroduction of constitutional writs that enable citizens to apply to the Supreme Court to review government decisions (a constitutional right that was non-existent in the post-1962 period up to 2011).

Chapters 10 to 13 on economic, political and business reforms are required reading for anyone seeking to understand the legal underpinnings of doing business in Myanmar. Sean Turnell analyses the laws pertinent to enabling Myanmar’s economic reforms with a note of caution that while these laws lay an important foundation for continued reform, their implementation faces an inherent challenge when authority and personality are conflated. Tun Zaw Mra gives a high-resolution take on one such challenge in the area of Myanmar’s stock exchange (launched in December 2015), and Melinda Tun makes the case...