TODAY

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and David W Rivkin, President of the International Bar Association (IBA), last night opened the inaugural meetings of the Independent Lawyers’ Association of Myanmar (ILAM), the first national, independent professional organisation of lawyers in Myanmar.

The launch of ILAM is the conclusion of a three year capacity building programme by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) in Myanmar. Since 2013, the IBAHRI has worked with Myanmar lawyers to establish a consensus of the need for an independent body to represent the legal profession nationally, and brought together a national steering committee to design the ILAM. The inauguration ceremony was hosted by the IBAHRI and the Parliamentary Committee on Rule of Law and Tranquility in Myanmar’s capital city, Naypyitaw.
The newly-established ILAM, with a membership of more than 2,000 higher grade pleader and advocate members to date, will undertake activities to represent and promote the interests of the legal profession and improve public legal awareness and access to justice, also working to upgrade the professional standard of existing and future lawyers by feeding into legal education initiatives and developing codes of conduct and disciplinary systems. In addition, the ILAM will act as the official liaison point for the legal profession to contribute to justice sector reform, linking lawyers working in each of Myanmar’s 15 administrative divisions with government, parliament, development partners and the public.