Challenges in the post-justice-seeking regime: the cases of Myanmar and Sri Lanka

This paper aims to shed light on the by-products of ‘justice seeking’ and challenges faced by the justice seekers in the post-justice-seeking regimes. Justice seeking might be desirable when it brings institutional changes that lessen the degree of unfair treatment. However, justice seeking, regardless of how it is sought through, might not always lead to institutions that ensure better distributive justice compared to the status quo due mainly to contestants’ failure of omission. Two justice-seeking episodes are illustrated to examine this hypothesis. Myanmar’s transition to democracy, considered as justice by the pro-democratic parties, was sought for a long time and finally achieved in 2015 through a peaceful parliamentary election. In contrast, the government of Sri Lanka, and the mass population as well, wanted justice against the insurgencies caused by the LTTE which finally achieved through armed confrontations. The case of Sri Lanka tells us that justice-seeking activities occasionally lead to such outcome as weakening of organizational ability to self-control or govern the organization that the justice seekers belong to. Likewise, Myanmar may possibly fall into the same dilemma of causing the slow pace of change associated with the general frustration in the people who want to feel tangible results immediately.