Jurisprudence Shaping Digital Rights in Southeast Asia change (SMEX), focusing on emblematic jurisprudence relating to digital rights obtained directly from websites of the courts and databases like CYRILLA8 and Global Freedom of Expression.9 In addition, the research also received secondary information from reports produced by civil society organisations. An expert focus group discussion was held in March 2023 with the participation of five experts from the main countries of focus in this research to help validate the selection of cases and the analysis thereof. Overall, there are 40 cases collated from five countries in the region, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines, and Thailand. The countries of focus were identified based on their prevailing situation of human rights online, and considering the availability and accessibility of court documents and local networks to support data collection. However, the research faced challenges in collecting court decisions, as these often were not available online, or available only in the local language with no English translations. Different levels of access to the court decisions in the countries of focus also created difficulties in providing a comprehensive view of the prevailing jurisprudence. press political expression. In Myanmar, the military coup and resulting social and political unrest provided pretext for the government to curtail peoples’ freedom of assembly and expression, including through prolonged shutdown of the internet6, resulting in further deterioration of human rights online. In this context, the courts have often been the site of struggle where individuals and civil society organisations have sought to challenge the law and seek protection against arbitrary confinement of rights. Given the pivotal role of the judiciary in safeguarding democracy and maintaining checks and balances against abuse by the executive and legislative branches of power, civil society has repeatedly turned to courts to seek remedy, repeal of laws or clarification in their applicability. As discussed in the analysis of cases cited in this report, strategic litigation and legal mobilisation have been key strategies for civil society organisations. This legal mobilisation has taken various forms, from lawsuits by individuals to class actions and judicial reviews that have produced landmark decisions upholding human rights online. However, in many instances, the courts have often not gone far enough to address and mitigate human rights concerns raised in the lawsuits. The study focuses on three key facets of digital rights: access to the internet, freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Our analysis adopts a human rightsbased approach to jurisprudence relying on international standards as the minimum protection afforded to all. 2. METHODOLOGY Building on APC’s publication Jurisprudence Shaping Digital Rights in South Asia,7 this edition applies the methodology developed by Social Media Ex- 6 7 8 9 https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/country/2022 ; Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2022, https:// freedomhouse.org/country/indonesia/freedom-net/2023, https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedomnet/2023, https://freedomhouse.org/country/philippines/freedom-net/2023 See Divya Srinivasan and Gayatri Khandhadai, Jurisprudence Shaping Digital Rights in South Asia, 2019, APC, available at https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/jurisprudence-shaping-digital-rights-south-asia CYRILLA database is available at https://cyrilla.org/ Global freedom of Expression database is available at https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/ 8