Legal Pluralism in Myanmar

This article delves into the pluralism of laws and forms of dispute resolution in Myanmar, based on ethnographic research conducted by the author, DIIS senior researcher Helene Maria Kyed and her Myanmar colleagues between 2015 and 2020. It argues that the plural legal landscape in Myanmar derives not only from the diversity of ethnicities and customs dating back to pre-colonial times, but also from political developments and state interventions. Colonial reification of ethnic divisions and postcolonial armed conflicts and military state authoritarianism have shaped and consolidated justice systems that operate in parallel to and often in competition with the state-legal system. Empirical research amply demonstrates that ordinary Myanmar citizens and denizens prefer to resolve disputes and crimes at the lowest level possible, predominantly within their own ethnic group and without the involvement of the state-legal system. This preference is caused by a mixture of political-historical, socioeconomic, and cultural-religious factors. Mistrust in the state’s willingness to serve the justice needs of ordinary people and discomfort with the formalistic procedures and punitive justice applied in state courts draw people toward using local justice system that apply reconciliatory and compensational justice. These local systems are also more in line with cultural and religiously informed perceptions of wrongdoing and justice. Despite the strong role of local justice systems, these are not recognized by state law. The decades of armed conflict between the military state and ethnic armed organizations have also given way to the development of more state-like ethnic justice systems and laws, which are applied by the ethnic armed organizations in the areas they control.

While these findings are based on research prior to the 2021 military coup, they continue to be of relevance for understanding contested state-citizen relations and dynamics of law and justice in Myanmar. The article argues that as Myanmar in the post-coup period is undergoing widespread armed conflict and more areas are being controlled by multiple resistance actors, legal pluralism is expanding even further, and people are distancing themselves even more from the state. This is in part because state law and courts have again become fully instrumentalized by the military junta to violently crack down on people opposing it’s rule. Mistrust in and fear of the state legal system are amplifying among ordinary people. Simultaneously, the alternative village- and ward-level systems people in state- controlled areas tended to resort to are suffering dramatic turmoil, as the military junta has removed disloyal administrators, while the armed resistance forces are targeting those who are loyal to the military. In these areas, ordinary people’s access to justice is more insecure than ever. Conversely, in areas ‘liberated’ by resistance forces, new non-state justice systems are being set up, while those of the ethnic organizations are expanding into larger territorial spaces. 

As Myanmar’s history has shown, legal pluralism and the prevalence of justice systems outside the state legal system, is reflective of contested processes of nation-state building and conflicts caused in large part by the militarized state and its colonial legacies. It is simultaneously the result of the creative establishment of alternative systems of justice outside of central-state control by a plurality of actors.