Remarks by Senior Minister Of State For Law, Indranee Rajah, at MOU signing ceremonies in Myanmar universities

19 FEB 2014

19 Feb 2014 Posted in Speeches

Dr Zaw Myint, Deputy Director General, Department of Higher Education (Lower Myanmar), Ministry of Education

Professor Tin Tun, Rector of the University of Yangon

Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

Professor Yeo Tiong Min, Dean, School of Law, Singapore Management University

Dr Khin Mar Yee, Head of the Department of Law, University of Yangon

Distinguished guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

INTRODUCTION

  1. First, I would like to thank all of you for the very warm welcome to myself and the delegation. We are very honoured to be here today, and I myself am honoured to be here today to witness the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Legal Education between the law faculties of the University of Yangon, the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University.

  2. Myanmar and Singapore share a long and warm friendship. In recent times, our friendship has grown even closer. On 30 January 2012, both countries signed an MOU on the Singapore-Myanmar Technical Cooperation Programme. Through that MOU, Singapore provided technical assistance in the areas of trade, law, banking, and technical education.

  1. Today, we are taking another step to further strengthen these relations. The MOU on Cooperation in Legal Education marks a milestone in formalising a partnership between our universities. The key areas of cooperation under the MOU include:
    1. Faculty exchanges and study visits with a view to enhancing linkages and knowledge sharing among the academic staff;
    2. Assistance in curriculum design;
    3. Teacher training; and
    4. The enhancement of resources for legal research and development in Myanmar.
  1. A good legal education system equips law students with the requisite knowledge and skills. It is critical to establishing a robust Rule of Law framework and I hope that this MOU will contribute to the strengthening of the Rule of Law in Myanmar.

BOOK CONTRIBUTION – THE SINGAPORE LAW COLLECTION

  1. On this note, it also gives me great pleasure to announce that the Singapore Ministry of Law, working with the Singapore Academy of Law, the law faculties of the National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University, as well as the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore, and the Subordinate Courts of Singapore, have put together a collection of Singapore law textbooks and other legal research tools to contribute to your expanding collection of resources for legal research in the Law Department of the University of Yangon.
  1. The textbooks in the collection cover a variety of subjects, including corporate and commercial law, criminal law, and land law. We hope that you will find this contribution useful and we look forward to further collaboration between our universities as well as Singapore and Myanmar.

CONCLUSION

  1. I am confident that there will be even more opportunities for closer collaboration between our two countries and look forward to forging closer ties with Myanmar in the years to come.
  1. Thank you very much.

University of Yangon’s Arts Hall, 18 February 2014

Dr Soe Win, Director General, Department of Higher Education (Upper Myanmar), Ministry of Education

Dr Saw Pyone Naing, Acting Rector of the University of Mandalay

Mr Robert Chua, Singapore Ambassador to Myanmar

Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee, Former Minister of State

Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

Professor Yeo Tiong Min, Dean, School of Law, Singapore Management University

Dr Tin Htay Ei, Head of the Department of Law, University of Mandalay

Distinguished guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

INTRODUCTION

  1. We are very honoured to be here today at the signing of this MOU. You have a beautiful university campus, a very historical building, and it is very delightful surroundings and we are very happy to be here.

  2. Today we have the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Legal Education between the law faculties of the University of Mandalay, the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University.

  3. Yesterday, we witnessed a similar signing with the MOU with the University of Yangon. This is a significant milestone in formalising a partnership between the Singapore and Myanmar universities. Our countries have a warm, close and friendly relationship, and we are glad to see that we have this relationship too with these two universities.

  1. The MOU will cover significant areas of cooperation. These include:
    1. Faculty exchanges and study visits with a view to enhancing linkages and knowledge sharing among the academic staff;
    2. Assistance in curriculum design;
    3. Teacher training; and
    4. The enhancement of resources for legal research and development in Myanmar.

LAWNET ACCOUNT

  1. A robust Rule of Law is fundamental to the success of any nation. And for a legal system to work effectively, it needs to have well-trained legal professionals. A good legal education system equips law students with the requisite knowledge and skills and it is critical to establishing a robust Rule of Law framework. One of the ways to achieve this would be to enhance and broaden the access to legal research and materials.
  1. On this note, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Singapore will be contributing to the University of Mandalay a collection of Singapore law textbooks and other legal research tools. I would also like to say a little bit more about the online research tools, one of which we are sharing. This is LawNet. LawNet is a service by the Singapore Academy of Law. It’s essentially a one-stop Internet portal where you can have a complete range of information and solutions for the legal community. It includes our statutes, our case law, the legislative history behind our statutes as well as other information relating to the law research materials. It is an authoritative source of legal information with data that is provided directly by primary and secondary sources of law in Singapore and also around the Commonwealth. We are happy to extend a complimentary LawNet account to the Law Department of the University of Mandalay. We hope that this, together with the collection of law textbooks, will enhance access to legal resources in Myanmar.

CONCLUSION

  1. Myanmar and Singapore share a long and warm friendship. With this MOU being signed, I am confident that the relationship between the law schools of both countries will be further strengthened. It will pave the way for more opportunities for collaboration in the future and I look forward to building closer ties together. And we can perhaps discuss the possible future visits by your staff to Singapore, and other ways which we can collaborate in this relationship.
  1. Thank you very much.

University of Mandalay, 19 February 2014

Last updated on 21 Feb 2014