This February 1, 2006, the case of Ma Su Su Nwe will come before the Supreme Court of Burma. The court will be asked to decide whether or not to admit an appeal against Su Su Nwe’s imprisonment on charges of having abused and intimidated members of a local government council. In effect the court is being asked to decide whether or not an act of revenge was justified: Su Su Nwe was jailed because she successfully prosecuted four members of the same council, including its chairman, for forced labour: the first such conviction since the practice was prohibited in 1999. Successive appeals against the 18-month sentence in lower courts have all been rejected off-hand. It now falls to the Supreme Court to make its position known.
The question that everyone will be asking as Su Su Nwe’s appeal comes to the Supreme Court is whether or not there exists any final resort for complainants, particularly in cases that relate to blatant abuse of state authority. While it is well-established that the Burmese courts are open to the directives of the military government and that there is no independence of the judiciary, the accepted wisdom has been that the courts are mostly subjected to outside dictates in overtly political cases. Su Su Nwe’s case is not one of these. She lodged an ordinary criminal complaint under the Penal Code, and despite being subjected to intense pressure refused to withdraw it and obtained a conviction based upon documentary evidence and the testimonies of witnesses. She was then made the target of a spurious counterattack by the man who took the place of the council chairman jailed because of her determination to obtain justice. Her own jail sentence exceeded that of the persons whom she had imprisoned by her actions.
Yet the deeper question that all people in Burma must ask is whether or not any criminal justice system exists in their country at all. Since the 1960s, when judicial officers became political appointees, the practice of criminal law in Burma has been steadily eroded. Since the 1990s it been reduced to little more than a farce. Judges are known to be bribed routinely. Punishments are applied arbitrarily and selectively, with little regard to judicial principles.
In this respect the story of Ma Su Su Nwe is the untold story of countless other persons who have struggled to obtain an iota of justice in Burma. It is also the untold story of dozens of human rights defenders there who have refused to compromise or be coerced despite overwhelming odds. It is the story of teenagers Ma San San Aye and Ma Aye Mi San, handed four years’ rigorous imprisonment in October 2003 on charges of falsely accusing a local official of having raped them at his house. It is the story of U Ohn Myint and Ko Khin Zaw, who in 2004 were jailed like Su Su Nwe for complaining of forced labour: and who were released only when some persons reported to be military intelligence officers paid the fines that they had refused to pay, instead choosing prison. It is the story of Ko Sein Win, who was jailed in the same year because he organised a farmers’ petition to object to government demands for paddy grain that they did not have. It is the story of Kyaw Min Htun, jailed for two years after coming to the aid of a woman being assaulted by a police officer. It is the story of Ma Soe Soe, who since allegedly being raped by two police officers in mid-2005 has persisted with her complaint, at last getting the case lodged in court this January, despite serious efforts to stop her. It is the story of Ma Aye Aye Aung, who since August 2005 has tried without success to have charges lodged against local officials after she and her husband were brutally assaulted in broad daylight, and is now herself being sued by the alleged perpetrators.
The highest court in any country stands as the final bulwark against injustice and in defence of fundamental principles of law, however they be interpreted. It is the last resort, when all other avenues are exhausted, that a person may have within a jurisdiction to obtain redress for wrongs committed against them.
The question for the Supreme Court of Burma is where there is no evidence of a functioning criminal justice system in the country, for what does the court stand? The case that is coming before it tomorrow, February 1, gives the court an historic opportunity to answer that question, and show that the possibility does still exist in Burma that a court can sit in consideration of a legitimate grievance and base its decisions upon principles of law rather than pressure from beyond its walls. What the Supreme Court is really being asked to demonstrate tomorrow is whether or not there remains any criminal justice system in Burma, or whether or not the country’s people should completely give up any expectations of the courts and find other ways to settle their problems. For the sake of Ma Su Su Nwe, the Asian Human Rights Commission sincerely wishes that the Supreme Court will give some small cause for hope.
