Proposed new Constitution has become a hot topic for public debate between the Government and the Opposition. However, the Opposition criticism is limited to their attitudes and platitudes on one or two articles in the Constitutional draft presented to Parliament for discussion, which they consider to be non-negotiable. Even then they fail to substantiate their claim. The Government also merely repeats the same story that those non-negotiable articles would remain so and deny any attempts on its part to change or modify them. Beyond that there is no substantiated discussion.
Amidst the thunder and fire of the Opposition’s mounting campaign against the draft Constitution a serious observer could see a range of lies, damn lies and suspicions. Let us see what these lies and suspicions are.
Lie No. One: No party in Parliament has a clear majority. Hence, there is no mandate of the people for a new Constitution. Therefore, the whole exercise is illegitimate.
Though no party received a clear majority the people voted for a change in the Constitution. The UNP clearly manifested its intention to bring in a new Constitution and the group that joined it with President Sirisena concurred with them. The UPFA had been campaigning and promising a new Constitution since 1978. It was in their election manifestos throughout the period including the last Presidential election.
Tamil Parliamentarians did not support both 1972 and 1978 Constitutions as they were kept out of the Constitution making process. So there was no question of their demanding the retention of the existing system. Thus there was an absolute mandate for a new Constitution. The SLFP change of heart came after the new government was formed and its former leader sat in the Opposition benches in Parliament with a group of dissident SLFP MPs and began a campaign against the new Constitution. Even then President Sirisena has so far refrained from endorsing the new SLFP thinking.
If one accepts that Constitution cannot be changed since no single party has an absolute majority in Parliament, it would take aeons to do so. International experience is against it. Nepal did draft a new Constitution after years of hard work despite the fragmented nature of its Parliament or the Constituent Assembly.
Lie No. Two: There is no participation of the public in the Constitutional reform exercise.
The reality is that a special Committee held people’s consultations at national and regional levels to obtain popular suggestions and recommendations. It published its report which included a wide range of proposals. On the other hand, the existing Constitution which the Opposition wants to preserve was rushed in Parliament in a matter of days with no public participation in its making.
Lie No. Three: The views of University teachers, lawyers, doctors etc. were not sought for the purpose.
The actual fact is that such views were sought but few of the professionals responded while the response of the ordinary public was substantial. It would be a sad mistake to call those who made representations to the above Committee as foreign agents or NGO representatives.
New Constitution
Lie No. Four: A federal solution would inevitably lead to separation.
It is not federalism that would lead to separatism and bifurcation of the country. It is the denial of human rights and repression of a particular community or group of people that would lead to separatism. Our own experience shows that the unitary state is no bar to separatism.
Federalism is being misinterpreted separatism to dupe the people. Even our Supreme Court has ruled that federalism is not separatism. Actually in the present world there is no Chinese wall separating federal and unitary states. While federal states such as India have unitary features unitary states such as the United Kingdom have federal features. Like everything evolves concepts too evolve and change over time. Hence, one cannot expect to rigidly cling on to stereotyped or ossified concepts.
Birth and development of capitalism
Lie No. Five: Sri Lanka has been a unitary state from ancient times.
Both States and unitary states were historical concepts that emerged during the birth and development of capitalism. It is in the 1972 Constitution that the term ‘unitary state’ was used for the first time. To call it historic would be an untruth.
Of late an attempt is made to make people believe that there is almost universal acceptance of the term and it is taken as unchangeable by the public. This view was also expressed by a legal luminary this week. To believe so would exclude majority of the entire population of the North and East and sizeable sections of the population elsewhere in Sri Lanka.
The Joint Opposition campaign against the new Constitution is based not only on lies but also on suspicions. One of the main allegations against the Government is that it proposes to do away with the privileged position afforded to Buddhism in the Constitution.
There are two formulations concerning the same in the draft proposals of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly. They both have the following statement: “Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana …”
They say, however, that it will be dropped in the final version on the insistence of outside powers and the NGOs. This is mere suspicion.
Similarly they suspect that the term ‘unitary state’ has been replaced by the Sinhala term "Ekeeya rajyaya" in the English text and "Orumitta Nadu" in the Tamil text to deceive both the Sri Lankan people and the international community and Sri Lanka would be considered a federal state by the latter. In fact some of them have overnight become linguistic experts on the Tamil language, interpreting the Tamil term in a biased manner.
Some extremist elements including a section of the Maha Sangha ask why the Constitution should be replaced and what are the problems that Tamils have which the Sinhalese do not have.
They seem to be born again. We have seen continuous agitation against the new Constitution, of course with its ebb and flow, ever since it was enforced in 1978.
Similarly the discrimination that still continues in the use of Tamil language in public sector institutions and the administration, the still continuing occupation of private lands by the Armed forces and the unexplained disappearances of Tamil youth are some of them. It was only recently that the President said that the people in the North and East suffer most. A Household Income Survey recently disclosed that there the average income is half that of the national average. Do we need to say more?
Add new comment