Law, Lawyers and Legal Institutions

After decades of military dictatorship, people in Myanmar seem to want more law, not less. Yet for all the talk of law, the part legal institutions play there remains heavily circumscribed. Why is that? How might it be otherwise? This chapter tracks the changing role of law and lawyering in Myanmar from the colonial period to the present, charting its vicissitudes to make sense of current conditions and consider law's potential to effect change. It concludes that efforts to reinvigorate law are unlikely to satisfy public demands for it as an antidote to decades of arbitrariness and abuse.