Author	Maung, Maung. author
Title	Burma's Constitution [electronic resource] / by Maung Maung
Imprint	Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 1959
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8890-6
Descript	325 p. online resource

This is an attempt to study and interpret the Constitution of the Union of Burma which has now passed its tenth year. A constitution read outside the context of constitutional history is incomplete, and I have, therefore, tried to trace the developments which culminated in the constitution; then study its important features with reference, where necessary, to the background in which they took shape and form; and, while studying how the constitution has been working, touch lightly on contemporary events and trends. It is a vast canvas I am trying to cover and what I am able to draw on it would inevitably be sketchy. But I do not write as a historian whose focus is on detail in a narrow area. Rather, having dug and gathered the facts, I trace their sweep in history. The details I willingly and happily leave to the historians, hoping only that my study will be of some use to them, if only as a target for their learned criticism. Some of the events and people I describe are still too near, and a clear perspective is therefore difficult. What is nearest appears biggest, and I often find it tempting to see and accept that Burma's history as a new independent nation began with the students' strike of 1936 or the resistance movement during the Second World War

I. The Story of the Constitution -- I. Annexation and British Rule -- II. War and Japanese Occupation -- III. Liberation and Fulfilment -- II. The Constitution at Work -- I. Form of State -- II. Fundamental Rights -- III. Peasants and Workers -- IV. Directive Principles of State Policy -- V. The President -- VI. Parliament -- VII. The Union Government -- VIII. The Union Judiciary -- IX. The States -- X. Amendment of the Constitution -- XI. International Relations -- XII. General Provisions -- XIII. Transitory Provisions -- Epilogue -- Postscript -- Appendices -- I. Opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on Annexation of Burma -- II. The constitution of Burma under Japanese occupation -- III. The Panglong Agreement, 1947 -- IV. Draft constitution approved by the AFPFL convention, May, 1947 -- V. Members of the constitution drafting committees, and staff, Constituent Assembly -- VI. Prime Minister U Nu's motion in the Constituent Assembly to adopt the constitution September 24, 1947 -- VII. The Constitution of the Union of Burma, with amendments -- VIII. The Constitution Amendment Act, 1951 -- IX. Chronology of Events