Myanmar: Analysis of the Second Amendment of the Broadcasting Law Myanmar : Analysis of t he Second Amendment of t he Br oadcast ing Law Centre for Law and Democracy info@law-democracy.org +1 902 431-3688 www.law-democracy.org November 2021 On 1 November 2021, the Myanmar State Administrative Council, the de facto government of the military regime running Myanmar, adopted the Second Amendment Law to the Television and Radio Broadcasting Law, Law No. 63/2021 (Second Broadcasting Amendment). It did so purportedly acting under Section 419 of the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, which provides that, during a state of emergency,1 the “Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services to whom the sovereign power has been transferred shall have the right to exercise the powers of legislature, executive and judiciary.” No public consultations were held prior to the adoption of this piece of legislation. The main changes effected by these amendments were, first, to substantially expand the scope of the definition of “broadcasting” in section 2(a) of the 2015 Broadcasting Law, No. 53/2015 (Broadcasting Law), to also include “any other technology for the people to directly catch the television and radio programmes”, while removing the following limitation from the earlier definition: “In this definition, Internet-based broadcasting shall not be included.” Second, the penalties in sections 96-99, which had hitherto been limited to fines, all had prison sentences – of varying lengths but ranging between a minimum of six months and a maximum of five years – added to them. Third, a new section 99-a was added, providing for fines of between MMK 10,000,000 and 50,000,000 (approximately USD 5,500-27,500) and imprisonment of between one and five years, for breaching any subordinate rules (such as by-laws, rules, regulations or orders) which had been adopted under section 106 (providing for the adoption of such subordinate rules). Finally, a new section 105-a provides that offences under the law shall be cognizable offences, meaning that police can make an arrest for such offences without a judicial warrant. All of these changes are highly problematical from the perspective of international law standards relating to freedom of expression and criminal due process. Indeed, looking at them as a package, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the main intention behind these changes is to allow for the imposition of prison sentences on individuals who disseminate audio or video content online that is critical of the military regime. The following sections of this Analysis focus, respectively, on the scope of the definition of broadcasting and other issues (sanctions and criminal due process guarantees). 1 The military claimed that a state of emergency was declared on 1 February 2021. The Centre for Law and Democracy is a non-profit human rights organisation working internationally to provide legal expertise on foundational rights for democracy. 1