Monday, 30 January 2012 13:15 Ko Pauk
Senior leader Tin Oo, who is also a member of NLD Law Affairs Committee, told Mizzima that two laws particularly, the Emergency Provisions Act and the Law Safeguarding the State from the Danger of Subversive Elements, popularly known as state protection laws will be the subject of motions to amend or repeal because they restrict human rights or are below the standards of international law.
Some of the laws go back to the British colonial government, he said.
A similar effort was undertaken in the last session of the Parliament. Thein Nyunt, a member of Parliament from the opposition New National Democracy Party, told Mizzima that he moved a motion to repeal and amend such laws during the second session of Parliament convened in September 2011.
“I moved the motion to repeal the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act in last parliament session,” he said. “I also moved a motion to release all political prisoners and grant amnesty, but I got only eight votes,” he said.
The Parliament is dominated by the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party and appointed military MPs, who total more than 80 per cent of seats in Parliament. If the NLD should win all contested 46 seats in the April 1 by-election it would hold less than 10 per cent of the seats.
Thein Nyunt said, “We will cooperate will everyone in repealing laws which are repressing people, which are not meeting the norms of international human rights standards.”
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