Major changes have already been made to the legal
system in Myanmar over the last two years. The next 10 years will be crucial to
the country’s transition to a democratic legal system. As the reform
process progresses, there is an urgent need for a new generation of law
graduates capable of contributing to the development and consolidation of the
law reform process.
In August 2012, it was announced that undergraduate degrees would begin to be
offered once again by the University of Yangon and Mandalay University. This
new cohort of students, to begin in December 2013, will include 15 LLB students
in each of the law departments. These changes raise key challenges when
considered in light of the history of legal education and the tertiary sector.
The history of legal education in Burma began at the then
Rangoon University in 1920. For many years, it only offered a postgraduate law
degree. It was not until 1965 that a full-time five-year course, referred to as
an LLB degree, was offered. An LLM program was later established in 1973.
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| Department of Law, University of Yangon |
Yet legal education has suffered from the same
interruptions of periodic forced closures by the government after various
political crises that have plagued the tertiary education sector in Myanmar
over the years. In more recent decades, the universities closed after the 1988
democracy uprising and did not open again until 1993. The most recent closure
occurred in 1996 due to student unrest. This led to the cancellation of all
undergraduate courses at the University of Yangon, which has only offered law
as an LLM, Diploma degree or PhD since then.
Instead, the government established distance
education programs, as well as several new universities, such as East Yangon
University and Dagon University on the outskirts of Yangon. The effect of these
changes was profound, leading to an oversupply of law graduates, reducing the
value of the degree, and keeping students physically distant from the political
centre.
The isolation of universities is now coming to an
end in light of promising initiatives across the tertiary sector that will
allow the universities to engage with a wide range of international
partners. Collaborative projects are being established with
several universities and international organisations, and regionally with
the ASEAN Universities Network.
In fact, reforms and local academic initiatives
have already occurred in unexpected places, something impossible prior to
Myanmar’s transition. For example, one professor has published a book on the
‘Constitutional Writs in Myanmar’. It is a compilation of case notes on writ
cases prior to 1971, yet it constitutes a radical contribution given that
the constitutional writs have been ‘re-introduced’
via the 2008 Constitution. The book’s aim is to teach a future generation of
law students about the significance of the writs as a mechanism for review of
government decisions. By publishing past court precedents, it highlights the
important place the writs once held in Myanmar. This is also timely given
that over 400 writs cases challenging government decisions have been taken to
the Supreme Court since 2011.
Yet legal education in Myanmar now faces a series
of challenges, some shared by the tertiary education sector broadly and others
specific to the discipline of law. Will law departments continue to offer
nine-month diploma courses, which do not qualify a graduate to practise law?
How will the University of Yangon make the shift from providing graduate
degrees to also providing undergraduate education? And what is the future of
distance education programs for degrees such as law?
There are many other challenges in terms of facilities and availability of legal resources. For
example, university courses are required to be taught in English, yet the Myanmar Law Reports only
record selected decisions of the Supreme Court in Burmese. Due to the influence
of the socialist, and then military, regime on the judiciary, there is almost
no case law in the teaching curriculum. This is also partly because the common
law tradition of the doctrine of precedent suffered under successive regimes.
These are just some of the challenges that will need to be addressed if legal
education is to move forward.
Legal education is not isolated from, but in part
depends on, broader legal reforms. This is not to claim that there is a direct
correlation between the content and methods of legal education and the
direction of the reform process. Debate still exists in many jurisdictions
about how to both train students to become lawyers and provide them with a
broad education that equips them with a wide range of skills. Yet there is no
doubt that in the next decade law graduates will be instrumental to the next
stage in the development of Myanmar’s legal system.
This article first appeared as 'Teaching Myanmar's next generation of lawyers' 18 Sept 2013, East Asia Forum.