ULA’s judiciary yet to handle over 2,500 complaints

By Admin 25 Oct 2023

DMG Newsroom
25 October 2023, Sittwe
 
The United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the Arakan Army (AA), which runs a parallel administration in Arakan State, said its judiciary department has yet to handle more than 2,500 complaints that it has received since last year.
 
Of the complaints it received in 2022, the ULA judiciary department could not address 2,882 cases including 999 criminal cases and 1,883 civil cases. The department received 3,112 more complaints as of the end of September this year, making for a total of 5,994 complaints, of which the department has handled 3,442 complaints so far, with 2,572 complaints yet to be addressed, said Justice For Arakan, the Facebook page of the ULA’s judiciary, on Tuesday.
 
Among the 2,572 complaints yet to be handled are 850 criminal cases and 1,722 civil cases. Naturally, it takes longer to solve civil cases than criminal cases, said Justice For Arakan.
 
The ULA announced the establishment of its judiciary in August 2021, and the ULA/AA court system has not been without its critics. There have, for example, been allegations of corruption.
 
A Sittwe resident who asked for anonymity said: “Out of nationalist sentiment, local people who are not satisfied with the junta’s judicial system tend to rely on ULA/AA. But there is bribery and corruption among the lower-level staff of the ULA’s court system, which affects the administering of justice. AA authorities should carefully handle this.”
 
On October 1, the ULA invited applications from young local people to join its judiciary.
 
A resident of Rathedaung town said: “In Rathedaung Township, people normally file complaints with the ULA courts. There are trial delays as cases are transferred from one court to another. And we have to incur transportation costs to go to the courts where we are summoned to.”