An interview with U Aung San Myint, Chair of Karenni State Transitional Constitution Drafting Committee about the formation of the committee.
The Karenni (Kayah) State Consultative Council (KSCC) has reformed the Karenni State Transitional Constitution Drafting Committee.
It was announced that the committee was formed on 24 October, with 15 committee members including U Aung San Myint, chairman of the KSCC.
The Network Media Group (NMG) interviewed the committee’s Chair U Aung San Myint about the purpose of establishing the Karenni State Transitional Constitution Drafting Committee, its future plan and the current work.
Q: It was announced on 24 October that a transitional constitution drafting committee had been formed. Can you tell me about the formation of the transitional constitution drafting committee?
A: We formed the Karenni State Constitution Drafting Committee since 2003. We have been working on our state constitution since then. However, after our state conference in 2015, we published this second draft in our state. After expanding our membership in 2018, both domestically and internationally, we formed the committee in order that all these stakeholders can participate in it. At that time, there were 15 members. Gradually we continued working on it.
Q: You are gradually working on it. Which stage have you reached now?
A: When the future federal democratic union is built, this constitution is drawn up so that we can participate as a member state. We have approved the fourth draft. Now is the transitional period. After the transitional period, we have to go through three periods. After the transitional period, the next step is to build the federal democracy.
Q: How do you plan to go about the federal democracy building period?
A: For the building period, we have a plan to form a transitional government in the transitional period after the fall of the military dictator. When we form a government, we need a constitution. We have been preparing for that from now on. This committee is not the new one. We reformed the existing Karenni State Constitution Drafting Committee, and then some members of the KSCC and two members of the IEC were added to the committee. Most of the old members of the state constitution drafting committee are included in the new committee. The reason why we made this decision is that we need both technical and concept when we draft this constitution. For this reason, we believe that the process we are going through will be correct if we can only assign the task to the existing team. We reformed the existing committee with the inclusion of members from the KSCC and the Interim Executive Council of Karenni State (IEC).
Q: How important are the constitutions for the transitional period?
A: We have political road maps for building our future federal democracy. To go this way, the first thing is the fall of the military dictator. After the fall of the military dictator, we have to start thinking about the structure of federal democracy in a transitional period. We will be in trouble if we are not ready for it. It is impractical if we think about executive, legislative and judicial sectors at that time. If we prepare from now on, once the transition period arrives, we will have to implement our ideas into reality. We are prepared for that.
Q: What is the purpose of forming the Constitution Drafting Committee?
A: We need the committee which represents our state. Our goal is to build a federal democratic union. The federal union has a constitution and our states also have constitutions. That’s why, we ourselves have to write the constitution of our state. We ourselves have to form the government of the state. According to the federal concept, if we are not prepared for that, it may turn into chaos when it comes to our turn. We have to think about it from now on and seek prior opinions. It is important for us to establish a strong constitution to be a member state in the future federal democratic union. It is impossible for us to go to the federal system without the constitution. We need to be practical although we are talking about the fact that we will go to the federal system and stand as a state in the federal union to establish a federal system with ethnic equality, justice and full self-determination. Our constitution is important for that. That’s why we wrote it. We are preparing for the future.
Sent by NMG.