Features

NMSJ’s Proposals on Constitutional Reform—A rejoinder

Published

4 years ago

2022/01/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

Constituional Miscellany

By Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, President’s Counsel

There were several responses to the proposals made by the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) on constitutional reform. Many of them were quite constructive.

Reverting to Parliamentary Government

One critic was unaware of a country that changed its form of government from Presidential to Parliamentary. One does not have to look far for examples; it happened in South Asia itself several times.

Both India and Pakistan inherited a Parliamentary form of government at independence. The 1956 Constitution of Pakistan adopted by the Constitutional Assembly retained the Parliamentary government, but it was abrogated in 1962 following a military coup. After Pakistan’s defeat in the Bangladeshi war, the 1973 Constitution re-established the supremacy of Parliament. With Martial Law being imposed in 1977, several provisions of the Constitution were suspended. In 1985, the 1973 Constitution was revived but with the President retaining the power to appoint the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and to dissolve the legislature. The power of dissolution was taken away by the 13th Amendment enacted in 1997 when Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister, but that became ineffective following the military takeover by General Musharraf in 1999. The power was formally restored by the 17th Amendment of 2003. In 2010, the 18th Amendment, spearheaded by President Zardari himself, took away the power of the President to arbitrarily dissolve the legislature, again restoring Parliamentary government.

Bangladesh also adopted a Parliamentary form after independence from Pakistan but adopted a Presidential form in 1975. This was followed by the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 15 years of military rule that was finally ended in 1990 by millions of people coming onto the streets. In September 1991, Parliament amended the Constitution to revert to a parliamentary form of government. This was overwhelmingly approved by the people at a referendum.

It would not be irrelevant to note that two more of our neighbours opted for Parliamentary government following monarchical rule. The Constitutional Assembly of Nepal opted for a Parliamentary government rejecting the proposals of the Maoists for Presidential government. Bhutan has followed suit with the support of the King himself.

Dr Benjamin Reilly of the Australian National University has shown in his book ‘Government Structure and Electoral Systems’ that of the 93 new democracies that gained independence between 1945 and 1979, all of the 15 countries which remained democratic throughout the 1980s were Parliamentary rather than Presidential systems. On the other hand, all the new presidential democracies from that period suffered some form of breakdown. He shows that, overall, Parliamentary systems have three times the rate of survival of Presidential systems.

Independent Commissions

A question that has been raised is whether the system of independent Commissions appointed on the recommendation of the Constitutional Council under the 19th Amendment is compatible with a system of Parliamentary government. The argument is that a parliamentary system, with its in-built safeguards, is more accountable compared to a Presidential system and therefore must be given flexibility.

Independent institutions play an important role in governance not only in Presidential forms of government but also under Parliamentary forms of government.

Under the Soulbury Constitution, which provided for a Parliamentary form, the Public Service Commission was an independent and strong institution. The independence of the public service was destroyed by the 1972 Constitution, which abolished the PSC and gave the Cabinet full control over the public service. The 1978 Constitution continued with this situation. It was changed by the 17th Amendment, which corrected, at least to some extent, a serious problem created under a Parliamentary form and continued under the Executive Presidency.

In India, which has a Parliamentary form of government, the Election Commission is strong and powerful and has ensured that elections are free and fair. But the method of appointment of the Commissioners by the Executive and without any consultative process has been criticised. In its 255th report, the Law Commission of India has recommended that Election Commissioners should be appointed by the President in consultation with a three-member selection committee, consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition of the Lok Sabha (or the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha in terms of numerical strength when there is no recognised Leader of the Opposition) and the Chief Justice of India. A public interest litigation application urging the Supreme Court to give effect to the recommendation is now before the Court.

In the United Kingdom, the Comptroller/Auditor-General is selected jointly by the Prime Minister and the Chair of the Committee on Public Accounts and is subject to ratification by the House of Commons. The Auditor-General of Canada is appointed by the Governor in Council after consultation with the leader of every recognised party in the Senate and House of Commons and approval by the Senate and the House of Commons.

Safeguards against executive dominance in governance are necessary not only in a Presidential form. It is foolhardy to expect that the Prime Minister’s dependence on majority support in Parliament would alone ensure the independence of the judiciary and of the Commissions that need to be independent of political manipulation. That is why the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Nayaka Thera, the founder of the NMSJ, insisted on the re-establishment of the Constitutional Council process even while agitating for the abolition of the Executive Presidency.

One must not forget the experiences under a two-thirds majority in Parliament between 1970 and 1975 and even until 1977 when the United Front had only a simple majority. The infamous ‘Emergency Rule’ in India in the 1970s is yet another example of independent institutions, not excluding the judiciary, succumbing to pressure.

A Second Chamber as a substitute for Commissions

The NMSJ has proposed a bicameral legislature. One critic who considers the NMSJ to have ‘poverty of vision’ has suggested that Constitutional Commissions be restricted to areas such as elections, public service, judiciary, audit and anti-corruption and for all other areas to be ‘covered’ by the Second Chamber. This is obviously due to a misconception about the role of a second legislative chamber.

Commissions, whether set up by the Constitution or by law, perform essentially executive functions. Even the former Constitutional Council, although it had its sittings in the precincts of Parliament, performed an executive function by its involvement in the appointment of constitutional functionaries and Commissions prior to formal appointment by the head of the executive.

When the Eighteenth Amendment Bill of 2003 sought to exclude decisions of the Constitutional Council from the fundamental jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, a seven-member Bench of the Court held that the Bill requires approval at a Referendum, stating that the Constitutional Council ‘is part of the Executive and is attributed executive power’.

A Second Chamber, by whatever name called, cannot exercise executive functions. The NMSJ proposed a second chamber of the legislature as an instrument of power-sharing that would also function as a mechanism to rectify possible imbalances of representation in the other house. It would also act as an in-built mechanism against hasty legislation and legislation that may have an adverse effect on the provinces.

Language

The NMSJ has proposed that Sinhala and Tamil be recognised as official languages and English as the link language. The criticism that it failed to deal with the language of communication, the language of education, etc., is certainly valid.

The NMSJ must, in refining its proposals in light of the discourse that the proposals generated, go into such details. A good starting point could be the proposals made by the sub-committee on fundamental and language rights of the Constitutional Assembly headed by MP Mahinda Samarasinghe. At the request of the sub-committee, Professor A.M. Navaratne Bandara, who was an expert advising the reform process, submitted a series of proposals. The sub-committee also considered the recommendations of the Public Representations Committee chaired by Lal Wijenayake.

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

8 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

8 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

8 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.