Background Back to contents 31 Myanmar’s legal framework Myanmar has a common law system created under the British colonial government in the 1950s. Before the ‘civilian’ government, led by exgeneral Thein Sein, there was a denial of basic human rights, arbitrary arrests, and abuses. After the 8888 Uprising in 1988, the military ruled by decree for over two decades. Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution was drafted as part of the ‘Seven Step Roadmap to Democracy’.49 The Constitution recognises the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, and limited aspects of privacy; however, the reasonable restrictions provided fall short of international standards as these rights are only granted to the extent that they ‘do not contradict laws for the protection of national security, public order, community peace and tranquillity, and public morality’.50 When the Thein Sein government came into power in 2011, censorship and surveillance reduced to some extent. Some laws which provided guarantees for freedom of expression were passed, such as the Telecommunications Law, Law Relating to the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession, the News Media Law, and the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law.51 These amendments, however, did not stop the government from using other existing laws to arrest pro-democracy activists, journalists, and human rights defenders. Civil society organisations pushed back on articles which violate or could violate human rights, such as Article 66 (d), of the 2013 Telecommunications Law which criminalised ‘defamatory’ speech.52 Further, the excessive secrecy that characterised the previous governments did not reduce, with the Official Secrets Act (1923) remaining unreformed and used aggressively against journalists. Efforts to adopt a right to information law started in 2016 but were limited.53 There was a brief flirtation with joining the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from