2008 Constitution of Myanmar

Constitution of the Republic of the
Union of Myanmar
(2008)
Created9 April 2008
Ratified29 May 2008
Date effective31 January 2011
PurposeTo replace the 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma
Politics of Myanmar
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The Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2008) is the third Constitution of Myanmar after 1947 and 1974 constitutions which lost force after military coups. It is part of the seven steps road map announced by then Prime Minister of State Peace and Development Council government General Khin Nyunt on 30 August 2003. One of the seven steps include recalling the National Convention for the drafting of new constitution. The National Convention was adjourned on 31 March 1996 by State Law and Order Restoration Council government.[1]

The convention began on 17 May 2004 and was attended by 1076 of invited delegates and representatives from 25 ethnic ceasefire groups. After several sessions, the convention concluded with the adoption of fundamental principles for a 54-member constitution drafting commission, which was later formed by the SPDC. On 19 February 2008, the SPDC announced that the commission had finalised the drafted constitution and planned to hold a referendum in May 2008.[2]

On 10 May 2008 (24 May 2008 in some townships), the 2008 constitutional referendum was held in Myanmar, and the SPDC announced 93.82% of the voters voted for the constitution. However, there has been widespread criticism of the process as the Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar a few days before the referendum and questions about whether the overall process was free and fair.[3]

The 2008 Constitution came into force on 31 January 2011.[4]

The Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) retained significant control of the government under the 2008 constitution. 25% of seats in the Parliament of Myanmar were reserved for serving military officers. The ministries of home, border affairs and defense had to be headed by a serving military officer.[5][6] The military also appoints one of the country's two vice presidents.[7] Hence, the country's civilian leaders have little influence over the security establishment.[8][9]

  1. ^ "The National Convention". Archived from the original on 27 September 2016.
  2. ^ "Chronology of Burma's constitutional Process" (PDF).
  3. ^ "A Preliminary Report on the referendum of May 10,2008" (PDF).
  4. ^ "၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ" [2008 Constitution]. Constitutional Tribunal of the Union of Myanmar (in Burmese). March 2018. ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေပြဋ္ဌာန်းချက်များနှင့်အညီ ၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေသည် ပထမအကြိမ် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်စတင်ကျင်းပသည့် ၃၁-၁-၂၀၁၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် စတင်အာဏာတည်ခဲ့သည်။
  5. ^ "Why is army still in Myanmar parliament?". BBC News.
  6. ^ "Can Aung San Suu Kyi control Myanmar's military?". 12 November 2015.
  7. ^ "Managing the defence and security council". 28 March 2016. Archived from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2017.
  8. ^ "Why is army still in Myanmar parliament?". BBC News.
  9. ^ "Can Aung San Suu Kyi control Myanmar's military?". 12 November 2015.