Burmese Supreme Court has long ceased to exist. Undoubtedly during the past fifty years or so there
have been the expected and ordinary changes of personnel, structure of the Courts and even changes
of Constitutions among Burma's neighbouring countries which have a common law legal
heritage.163 In comparison, the radical and generally negative changes, the deterioration or at the
least discontinuities in the structure, composition, independence and law reporting of the apex courts
have been most discernible in the case of Burma. The author is of the view that none of Burma's
neighbouring or nearby countries that share a common law legal heritage have judiciaries or apex
courts that experienced such discontinuities as in the case of Burma. This article is in part an attempt
to highlight the radical discontinuities in the Burmese judicial experience by means of focusing on
the 1948 and the 1998 Law Reports in comparison and in contrast.
The changes in the language of the apex Burmese Courts (almost totally) from using English in
1948 to that of writing all judgments in Burmese in the 1998 Myanmar Law Reports have been
mentioned. In fact the writing of judgments only and exclusively in Burmese in all the apex Courts
of Burma has been a continuing trend since the year 1969. It is to be emphasised here that the author
is not stating that the change in the use of language from English to Burmese in the past thirty-five
years in rulings delivered by the apex Burmese courts is necessarily a matter to be deplored.164 The