Sai Whira Linn Khant

    Our society is in transition. Transition to full democracy can be very painful. We need to ensure a smooth transition between the old system and the new one. The first step towards a genuinely democratic society is the rule of law. Without any rule of law, building a developed country is not realistic—it’ll never be more than a pipe dream.

Growing up in fear
    If there is no rule of law, fear will always haunt us. There will emerge shock news such as the loss of a comedian’s eyesight due to a catapult pellet of one of the hooligans at an anyein concert, the gang rape of a wife near a famous shopping centre, the armed robbery in a jewellery store, the downtown mugging in broad daylight, the brutal murder of a creditor for small debts owed, the bribery of civil servants and judges who are corrupt as well as the arrest on a charge of diminishing the love of the people for the government and distributing copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What a shame these cases really happened in Myanmar, a Buddhist country.

Rights and duties
    Dr. Ba Han said that law is a body of rules that defines the rights and duties of the citizens, first in their relation to one another, and next in their relation to the State of which they are members. One who does not respect the law should not seek the protection of law. So human rights and duties go together with the rule of law like two sides of a coin.

Is house arrest that easy?
    Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, delivered a speech on the rule of law at Yale University in the US on 27 September 2012. It was on 20 July 1989 that a force of policemen and uniformed soldiers got into her compound, and she was placed under house arrest without trial. Then the security forces took up her residency there. Just before her release, she happened to admit a man who swam to her lakeside home. She testified before a prison court that she did not violate her house arrest. However, the laws of the land were only in their mouths.

I-can’t-bear-you law
    There actually was. According to Lord Acton, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Under section 5 brought out in 1950, anyone could clap you to five years in prison if you were not their favourite. Once upon a time, a member of the NLD party served time for over 18 years. The law was harnessed by a handful of those in authority to promote their political agenda.

Mob rule
    “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%,” Thomas Jefferson once said. Democracy, where the government acts in the interest of the whole community, is in fact not synonymous with ochlocracy, or mob rule, where the government acts in the exclusive interests of a group or individual at the expense of justice. If you are not colour-blind, you can distinguish the difference between red and green easily.

Civil war seems never-ending
    The internal conflict in Myanmar has been labelled as the world’s longest-running civil war. It has been over 70 years since 1948, the year of independence from the UK. The sporadic violence between government forces and insurgent groups is still ongoing. In the outlying areas, ethnic nationalities have been victims of horrendous abuses—torture, forced labour and forced relocation, to name but a few. Ethnic conflict cannot come to an end unless there is rule of law.

Unity is strength
    Let bygones be bygones. Just because we forgive and forget the past does not necessarily mean we can commit the same mistake again. Like a story about a great bird named Bharunda with two heads but a common body, whoever eats a poisonous fruit, its stomach hurts like hell. We are all in the same boat of law, which should not be damaged by guns, knives or fists. Any gaping hole can harm us all, can’t it? All we need is peace talk.

Leave behind a legacy of safety
    The fruits of our labour may not be reaped by this generation but by future generations. To re-establish the rule of law in Myanmar, the people should collaborate on all the legislative, administrative and judicial systems. It is essential that not only these laws are just but also these laws are applied to the letter. Only then will our democracy be on a safe road from day to day.