The Justice Department of the United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the Arakan Army (AA), has received many complaints regarding legal disputes and is working to bring justice to the people, according to ULA/AA spokesperson U Khaing Thukha.

“There are many cases filed to the ULA/AA. The ULA’s Justice Department scrutinises them to bring justice to the people,” said U Khaing Thukha.

He told DMG, however, that he could not say the exact number of cases.

In an August 1 statement, the ULA said it would take legal complaints lodged via email, the mobile app Telegram and the Russian social media platform VK, with broad scope for seeking redress on matters ranging from land disputes and theft to violence and other law-breaking.  

The complainants’ information and identities would be protected while investigations into their complaints were undertaken, the ULA statement said, inviting complaints from aggrieved parties and their relatives, and eyewitnesses.  

The AA’s chief, Major-General Twan Mrat Naing, on August 15 told Arakkha Media that the AA would pay salary to the staff of the Justice Department to prevent corruption and bring justice to the people.

The ULA has already drafted a law on the judiciary, U Khaing Thukha told DMG early this month, in effect declaring the establishment of a Justice Department separate from the existing judicial system overseen by Myanmar’s military regime.

Courts have been set up from the village-tract level up to the district level, and wrongdoers would be prosecuted in accordance with the law drafted by the ULA/AA, U Khaing Thukha said at the time.  

The creation of a parallel ULA/AA-administered legal system comes as the military and Arakan Army continues to maintain an informal ceasefire agreement.

The truce reached in late 2020 was preceded by some two years of conflict that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and displaced more than 200,000 people.