{"id":34913,"date":"2017-10-10T13:08:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T11:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/34913-courts-in-myanmar-unequipped-to-administer-justice-says-report.html"},"modified":"2017-10-10T13:08:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T11:08:41","slug":"courts-in-myanmar-unequipped-to-administer-justice-says-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/34913-courts-in-myanmar-unequipped-to-administer-justice-says-report.html","title":{"rendered":"Courts in Myanmar \u2018unequipped\u2019 to administer justice, says report"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report has delivered a damning indictment of Myanmar\u2019s judicial system, detailing judges sleeping through during testimony, defendants coerced into pleading guilty and most cases going to trial before legal counsel was organised for the accused.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0report<\/a>, published this month by the London-based legal support group Justice Base<\/a>, was the culmination of more than 150 trial observations across four years in Yangon Region\u2019s township and district courtrooms.<\/p>\n

Local legal professionals, employed by Justice Base as observers for the \"Monitoring in Myanmar\" report, documented rampant corruption in court administration, a culture of deference to police witnesses and judges, intervention in proceedings by other officials, and routine procedural delays that kept cases running for months longer than necessary.<\/p>\n

In one extraordinary case, according to the report\u2019s findings, a defendant paid a police officer to testify against him, after the officer\u2019s repeated absence from the court led to numerous adjournments by the presiding judge.<\/p>\n

In another courtroom, a judge attempted to expedite proceedings by conducting two civil trials at the same time as a criminal case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the defendant testified on his own behalf, the presiding judge also allowed civil lawyers to proceed with their cases,\u201d the report said. \u201cThe observer reported that the courtroom was small and she had difficulty hearing the defendant\u2019s testimony ... The judge did not make any rulings or intervene in any of the cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, court clerks routinely charged 10 times the official rate for providing copies of documents to defence lawyers. Observers were told that money changed hands \u201cduring every stage of the formal judicial process\u201d, including bail applications, adjournment requests and sentencing hearings.<\/p>\n

In nearly 90 percent of the cases surveyed by Justice Base, defendants did not have legal representation during bail hearings, and in nearly half of the cases defendants were still without a lawyer when the prosecution began presenting its case.<\/p>\n

\u201cDecades of military rule with no meaningful separation of powers have left the judiciary unequipped to administer justice impartially and effectively,\u201d said Justice Base country director Ms Anjali Mohan Gelbort in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe absence of legal representation is alarming, especially as it concerns the early stages of proceedings where defendants are most vulnerable to abuse or coercion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Base has called for the Office of the Supreme Court to improve training on ethical conduct and fair trial rights for the country\u2019s judges, improved documentation of legal proceedings and police protocols to inform detainees of their legal rights.<\/p>\n

This article was first published by Frontier<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report has delivered a damning indictment of Myanmar\u2019s judicial system, detailing judges sleeping through during testimony, defendants coerced into pleading guilty and most cases going to trial before legal counsel was organised for the accused. The\u00a0report, published this month by the London-based legal support group Justice Base, was the culmination of more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":66321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2365],"class_list":["post-34913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-tribunals","ji_location-myanmar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCourts in Myanmar \u2018unequipped\u2019 to administer justice, says report - JusticeInfo.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/34913-courts-in-myanmar-unequipped-to-administer-justice-says-report.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Courts in Myanmar \u2018unequipped\u2019 to administer justice, says report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new report has delivered a damning indictment of Myanmar\u2019s judicial system, detailing judges sleeping through during testimony, defendants coerced into pleading guilty and most cases going to trial before legal counsel was organised for the accused. 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