Rule of Law in Brunei

Brunei has a dual judicial system of Sharia and secular courts; all senior judges are appointees of sultan. The courts seem to act independently when handling civil matters, and have yet to be tested in political cases or under the fresh regulations recently phased in. They have not shown independence in any cases connected to the sultan’s interests, nevertheless. The government merely provides an attorney to needy defendants in death penalty cases. To address this considerable gap in access to justice, the Law Society of Brunei launched a pilot program for the nation’s first legal aid fund in 2018.

Criminal and civil law is based on English common law and is applied in secular courts, while Sharia is applied in Sharia courts. Due process rights including the presumption of innocence is not available to people detained under the Internal Security Act. The country’s controversial Sharia-based penal code was deferred for several years; Brunei introduced the first phase in the year 2014 but did not fully apply the code, which contains penalties including amputations and death by stoning, until 2019.

Brunei’s Sharia Penal Code (2013) finally came into effect on April 3, 2019. The new code poses serious threats to fundamental human rights and show prejudice against the nation’s most vulnerable groups, including women, children, and religious and sexual minorities. Several of the code’s provisions violate Brunei’s obligations under international human rights conventions to which Brunei is very much a party and customary international law.

Brunei retained the death sentence for crimes including drug trafficking before the new Sharia code was introduced. But no individual has been executed since 1957. Prison conditions meet international standards in general. Sharia-based criminal laws implemented in 2019 contain more harsh penalties for violations including consensual theft, same-sex relations, and adultery; they vary from whippings to amputations and death by stoning. That May, the sultan issued a “de facto moratorium on capital punishment,” but issued no clarification on the other provisions.

Bruneian citizenship is primarily inherited from citizen fathers. To pass citizenship on to children born to a noncitizen father, citizen mothers need to complete an application. Thousands of stateless residents of Brunei are deprived of the full rights and benefits granted to citizens. LGBT+ people living in Brunei are subject to harsh penalties for same-sex relations under Sharia-based laws. Under regulations applied in 2019, consensual same-sex acts can be punished by death, or by whipping in case of female offenders.