Features

Lost opportunities for meaningful constitutional reform

Published

3 months ago

2026/07/20

I am honoured to be invited to speak at the launch of Dr. Wickramaratne’s Constitutional Conversations. Dr. Wickramaratne, who has had a ringside view of the trajectory of Sri Lanka’s Constitution for over three decades, writes not as someone who has merely studied constitutional events from a distance, but as one who has lived through them — experiencing at first hand the successes, hopes, fears, disappointments and the unfulfilled promises of the constitution-making process.

Reading through the chapters of this book, one cannot help but regret the lost opportunities for meaningful reform and how, over the years, history has repeated itself in the process of constitutional making and of the tragic failure to learn from the lessons of history.

Dr. Wickramaratne became part of the reform process 32 years ago, in 1994, and, to this day, successive governments have failed in the efforts to replace the 1978 Constitution. Political opportunism, vacillation, the lack of political will, and the failure at consensus building, have doomed each of these efforts. Dr. Wickramaratne takes us through events which stalled every effort towards a constitution that would truly uphold the ideals of democracy and constitutionalism.

We are also reminded that three-fourths of the amendments to the Constitution were passed within the first decade of the birth of the Constitution, when five-sixths of the Parliament was with one political party. As Dr. Wickramaratne shows in taking the reader through the travails of the constitutional process – both the process of constitutional amendment and the bid to have a new constitution, the failure of politicians to act as statesmen, to think of the broader interest of the nation rather than their own narrow parochial interests – have meant the failure of genuine constitutional reform.

Constitutional Conversations

leaves us with the question as to how long more the people of Sri Lanka would have to wait for a Constitution with the Founding Constitutional Principles and Values that the Collective for Democracy and Rule of Law, set out on the eve of the 2024 Presidential Elections, including, among other things, human dignity, ethnic, gender and social equality, the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law and non-concentration of state power in one individual or institution.

Key among Dr. Wickramaratne’s proposals is his insistence that any new constitution must be marked by a dynamic interpretation of constitutional provisions to advance justice and equality, a focus on social justice and participatory democracy, and a constitution that evolves rather than remains frozen in time.

Much of Constitutional Conversations centres around the theme of constitutional reform — its key issues, fundamental rights and the judiciary, and devolution — themes which have long been dear to Dr. Wickramaratne and which he continues to champion.

Ever present throughout Constitutional Conversations is the need to protect democracy and constitutionalism — and the sobering lesson of Sri Lanka’s own experience of elected governments.

Dr Wickremeratne’s experiences and his honest assessment of the development of Sri Lanka’s Constitution, remind us that democracy, constitutionalism and the institutions which hold them together can at no time be taken for granted — and that protecting them is part of a lived struggle.

Democracy needs to be defended, sometimes from the very leaders who are elected at an election. An election, however free and fair, may not guarantee the protection of democracy or stop them if they overreach.

The temptation will always be to believe that this time, concentrated power will be used wisely; that leaders can be trusted with fewer checks because their cause is just and their intentions pure. Every democracy that has slid backward believed exactly that — right up until it could no longer reverse course.

Sri Lanka’s experience is that governments that win with large majorities are still governments that can be wrong, that can be tempted by their massive majorities, that can mistake a mandate for a blank cheque.

The history of Sri Lanka has shown that democracy and institutions have faced their biggest challenges at the hands of governments with large parliamentary majorities. The majoritarian Constitution of 1972 which also did away with post enactment judicial review, the 1978 Constitution skewed in favour of a powerful executive President, the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution rolling back the positives of the 17^th, the 20^th Amendment to the Constitution pushing back against the 19^th Amendment, are few examples of how large Parliamentary majorities have resulted in democratic backsliding. In contrast, the relatively pro- democracy 17^th, 19^th and 21^st Amendments were all the products of Parliaments where governments did not command super majorities and constitutional amendments were the products of consensus.

This brings us to the importance of constitutionalism. The idea that power, even power that arrives through the ballot box, must be limited by the principles of constitutionalism. The entire purpose of constitutionalism is to protect us from that very temptation — including from ourselves, and from even leaders we may like and admire.

Dr. Wickramaratne frames this with a phrase worth remembering: constitutional supremacy means the Constitution stands above temporary political majorities – above the temporary will of whoever happens to hold office this year.

One of the most useful ideas the book offers is the distinction between two competing visions of where ultimate authority lies in a state.

In the British tradition —Parliament is sovereign. In some aspects Sri Lanka follows this in preventing post enactment judicial review. Even where the law infringes constitutional provisions, and even where Parliament itself has not followed its own proper internal processes. Whilst it may be argued that this model has its virtues in that it trusts the wisdom of elected representatives, it has a fatal weakness. If Parliament is supreme, then a Parliament captured by a determined majority can rewrite the rules of the game itself — extend its own term, dismantle the courts that might check it, remove the safeguards that protect minorities — and there is, within that legal logic, no wrong being done. It is all perfectly “legal”.

Constitutional supremacy answers this by placing something above Parliament: a constitution that even the majority cannot casually amend, interpreted by courts empowered to strike down actions — legislative and executive — that violate it. Dr. Wickramaratne argues, and I think correctly, that constitutional supremacy serves democracy better than parliamentary supremacy, precisely because it protects democracy from its own majorities. It is not anti-democratic to limit majority rule. It is what makes majority rule safe to have in the first place.

The book devotes a great deal of attention to a theme that will be familiar to anyone watching politics anywhere in the world today: the concentration of power in the executive, and other institutions of the state allowing themselves to be subsumed by an all-powerful executive.

In the United States we see how the Supreme Court has expanded the boundaries of the executive Presidency – almost holding the President to be above the law. In the case relating to the immunity of President Trump from criminal action the dissenting judgment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the majority of the court of “making a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”

Dr. Wickremeratne treats the concentration of power in an executive presidency as having fundamentally disturbed the constitutional balance — weakening Parliament, undermining accountability, and diminishing the sovereignty that is supposed to reside in the people.

He does not treat this as one design flaw among many that can be patched. He argues that piecemeal adjustment is not enough — that meaningful democratic consolidation requires structural change: collegial decision-making, collective responsibility, and power genuinely shared rather than concentrated in one office. Hence the need to abolish the Executive Presidency.

Dr. Wickramaratne’s chapters on executive power, on the appointment and removal of the Prime Minister, and on strengthening Parliament all speak to the dangers of democratic backsliding. He warns that Sri Lanka’s democracy cannot be held hostage to the whims of successive Presidents who have concentrated power, weakened institutions and undermined accountability.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their seminal work How Democracies Die, remind us that blatant dictatorship — fascism, communism, military rule — has largely disappeared from the world, and that most countries now hold regular elections; yet democracies still die — only by different, quieter means.

I quote ‘ There are no tanks in the streets. Constitutions and other nominally democratic institutions remain in place. People still vote. Elected autocrats maintain a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its substance.

Because there is no single moment – no coup, declaration of martial law or suspension of the constitution – in which the regime obviously crosses the line into dictatorship, nothing may set off society’s alarm bells. Those who denounce government abuse may be dismissed as exaggerating or crying wolf. Democracy’s erosion is, for many, almost imperceptible.’

Democratic backsliding rarely announces itself with tanks in the street. It usually begins quietly — institutions persuaded to defer to an executive “just this once,” an institution whose independence is trimmed, an amendment or a law that is allowed to be passed to address “the crisis at hand.” Each step is small. Each step is defensible in isolation, but indefensible when one looks at the big picture. And each step makes the next step on the road to autocracy easier.

The book takes us through the rise and fall of Sri Lanka’s 19th Amendment — a reform that clawed back power for Parliament and strengthened checks on the executive — only to be largely repealed by the 20^th Amendment. The author makes a striking point that the lasting importance of that amendment lies not in how long it survived, but in the democratic ideal it expressed — a demonstration that limits on executive power were possible, and that they enjoyed genuine public support.

However, the fate of the 19^th Amendment also warns us that progressive reform can never be taken for granted and that popular will is fickle and can change in a moment. Hence the need to strengthen the institutions from backsliding, independent of those who may man them for the time being.

A constitution that limits power on paper is meaningless if there is no institution independent enough to enforce that limit.

Dr. Wickramaratne draws a comparison many of us will recognise: the American case of Marbury v Madison, in which the United States Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Marshall, first asserted the power of judicial review — the authority of courts to strike down laws that conflict with the constitution. That single doctrinal move, over two centuries ago, is the ancestor of every modern court that today tells an elected government: this, you may not do. In the history of the second republican constitution, the decision of the Supreme Court in the Kalawana Determination where the Government attempted to thwart the outcome of an election petition and to seat an unseated member in Parliament and the decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in the cases relating to the dissolution of Parliament in 2018 are notable examples as to how the Sri Lankan Courts demonstrated their will to ensure constitutionalism.

An independent judiciary is not a technicality. It is the mechanism by which constitutional supremacy becomes real rather than aspirational. Human rights that exist only on paper, unenforceable and undefended, are not rights — but rather are mere wishes. The book insists that fundamental rights must be real and enforceable, not merely aspirational, and that this depends entirely on a judiciary with the courage and independence to act as a check, even against a popular government.

But the judiciary cannot do this alone. A resilient democracy needs a network of institutions reinforcing one another: a Parliament with genuine oversight power rather than a rubber stamp; independent commissions insulated from the executive of the day; a public service and police that answer to law rather than to political patronage; a free and independent media – be it state or private media- that can expose overreach before it hardens into precedent a strong and independent legal profession and a vibrant civil society.

When any one of these institutions is captured or hollowed out, the others are weakened, too —Backsliding happens when any one of these pieces is allowed to erode — when an institution is quietly weakened, when a legislature stops asking hard questions, when “emergency” powers become permanent, when constitutional supremacy is treated as an inconvenience rather than a safeguard, when media whether they be state or private become mouthpieces of any government failing in their role to be sentinels over government.

There is one more dimension of the book I want to bring to you. The author argues that in a plural society — one with real ethnic, religious, or regional diversity — devolution of power is not a political concession granted grudgingly from the centre but rather a constitutional necessity.

A state that centralises all authority in one office, unchecked by courts or a genuine legislature, is also a state more prone to governing for the majority community at the expense of minorities. Meaningful power-sharing, the book argues, is indispensable not only for preserving national unity but for laying the foundation for lasting peace between communities.

Democracy gives us the right to choose who governs. Constitutionalism is what stops the chosen from ruling without limit. Institutions — courts, legislatures, election bodies, a free media, an independent legal profession, civil society — are the instruments through which that limit is actually enforced, day to day, case to case. And devolution, in divided societies, is how constitutionalism extends its protection beyond the individual to the community.

The book’s central lesson, to my mind, is this: constitutional reform is never a one-time achievement to be filed away. It is a continuing conversation — as the title itself suggests — that each generation must be willing to have again, honestly, and sometimes at real political cost.

Dr. Wickramaratne reminds us that a constitution is a living commitment we renew — in our courts, in our legislatures, in the vigilance of a free press, and in the everyday insistence that no office, however popular, stands above the law. That is how democracy survives its own successes and its own crises alike. That is the conversation this book invites us to keep having.

Dr. Wickramaratne may I congratulate you for this book and it is my wish that you will continue to contribute for many years to come to the development of constitutional discourse in our nation. (Concluded)

Speech delivered by Saliya Pieris, PC
former President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka,
at the launch of Dr.Jayampathy Wickramaratne’s Constitutional Conversations
on 16 July, 2026.

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Features

The Great AI Schism: When the Titans of Tech tell us to slow down

Published

6 hours ago

2026/10/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Prof. C. A. Saliya

Something extraordinary happened in September 2026. The very people who have spent the last decade pouring tens of billions of dollars into building artificial intelligence, the visionaries, the investors, the CEOs, suddenly started telling the world to hit the brakes. It’s a bit like the captain of a speeding train leaning out of the window and shouting, “Actually, maybe we should slow down a bit!” The public, understandably, is confused. We’ve been told AI will cure cancer, solve climate change, and give us all free time. Now we’re being told it might kill us all. Welcome to the great AI schism.

To understand what’s happening, you have to listen to the people in the room. These are not wild-eyed doomsayers on the internet. They are the titans of the industry. And they are starting to argue with each other.

Dario Amodei: The Insider Who Wants to Hit Pause

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic (Claude AI), is the man who kicked the hornet’s nest. In a 3,800-word essay, posted on his website in mid-September 2026, he didn’t just suggest caution, he demanded a slowdown. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” he wrote. His reasoning is simple and terrifying: the technology is moving faster than our ability to control it. He warned that AI could be misused for cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption.

What makes Amodei’s warning so chilling is that it comes from a man whose company, Anthropic, builds one of the most powerful AI models in the world, Claude. He’s not a critic on the sidelines. He’s in the driver’s seat, and he’s telling us the car might not have brakes. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said he agreed with a departing Anthropic researcher who claimed AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade. That researcher, 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, resigned in protest, saying the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all”. When the people building the technology start resigning because they’re afraid of it, you should pay attention.

Bill Gates: The Elder Statesman with a Warning

Bill Gates has been around long enough to know a paradigm shift when he sees one. The Microsoft co-founder, who spent decades warning the world about pandemics and climate change, has now turned his attention to AI. And he’s not mincing words. In September 2026, Gates warned that AI is “powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths”.

Gates is not worried about Terminator-style robots. He’s worried about people. “There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he said. His solution is simple: regulation. “No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. He even offered to be the man to convince President Trump to regulate AI. Gates is a pragmatist. He knows the technology is coming. He just wants to make sure it doesn’t get us first.

Sam Altman: The Showman with a Conscience (Maybe)

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (Chat GPT), has always been the industry’s greatest showman. He’s the man who told us AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is “just around the corner” and that AI will soon be a “genie that can grant any wish”. But even Altman is now singing a different tune. In September 2026, he ruled out an OpenAI IPO in 2026, citing safety concerns. He called even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction “unacceptable”.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman posted on X. This is a remarkable shift. Altman has spent years being criticised for moving too fast, for prioritising profit over safety. Now, facing mounting evidence that AI models can cause real harm, from cyberattacks to mental health crises, he’s suddenly the voice of caution. Is it genuine? Or is it a PR move? The cynics will tell you it’s the latter. But the fact remains: when Sam Altman says we need to slow down, the world listens.

Elon Musk: The Provocateur Who Saw It Coming

Elon Musk has been warning about AI for over a decade. He’s the man who called AI “more dangerous than nuclear weapons” long before it was fashionable. So it’s no surprise that he joined the chorus of slowdown calls in September 2026. But Musk being Musk, he couldn’t resist a bit of dark humour. When asked if we’re all going to die within 10 years, he replied, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but we’re all going to die someday anyway”.

But behind the joke is a serious point. Musk believes AI models could escape their constraints, take control of military systems, and even launch nuclear weapons. His solution is mutual oversight: leading AI companies should test each other’s systems for safety before release, and he even suggested a deal with China to make it happen. Musk is a provocateur, but he’s also a visionary. And his vision is one where AI is a weapon that we might not be able to control.

Satya Nadella: The Quiet Strategist

While the others are shouting about doom, Satya Nadella is quietly building an empire. The Microsoft CEO doesn’t talk about extinction risks. He talks about “agentic AI”, AI that can act autonomously, which he calls “a new paradigm”. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which powers these AI agents, grew 43% in the last quarter, surpassing $100 billion in annual revenue.

Nadella’s view is simple: don’t compete to build the most powerful model; compete to control the “orchestration layer”, the systems that connect different AI models. He wants to build the infrastructure that everyone else relies on. It’s a smart play, and it’s making Microsoft a fortune. But Nadella’s silence on safety is deafening. While Amodei and Altman wrestle with their consciences, Nadella is counting the money. It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s that his business model depends on AI being adopted, not regulated.

Jacob Coxon: The Whistleblower Who Lit the Fuse

You may not have heard of Jacob Coxon. He’s not a billionaire. He’s not a CEO. He’s a 27-year-old researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic. And in September 2026, he resigned from Anthropic with a warning that shook the industry. “Neither company is acting responsibly,” he wrote on X. “They are launching themselves directly toward a superintelligence capable of self-improvement, and gambling with our lives”.

Coxon’s warning was remarkable because it came from inside the machine. He said the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. He called for a temporary freeze on advanced AI training. His resignation triggered a wave of concern, and even Dario Amodei admitted he agreed with Coxon more than he disagreed. Coxon is the canary in the coal mine. And the canary is not looking well.

Donald Trump: The Wildcard

And then there’s Donald Trump. The US President has consistently downplayed AI fears, calling them a “hoax” and a “sick conspiracy”. But even Trump is starting to change his tune, sort of. In September 2026, he announced plans to create an “AI Force” and appoint an AI “Czar”. He said the government would look for “bad” uses of AI through the existing criminal and civil justice systems.

But Trump’s priority is clear: winning the AI race against China. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry,” he said. He wants AI to account for 25% of US GDP. Trump is not a technologist. He’s a businessman and a nationalist. He sees AI as a tool for economic dominance, not an existential threat. Whether he’s right or wrong, his stance puts him at odds with almost every expert in the field.

The Bottom Line: A House Divided

So where does this leave us? We have the CEOs of the world’s leading AI companies, Amodei, Altman, and Musk, all calling for a slowdown. We have Bill Gates, the elder statesman of tech, warning of a billion deaths. We have a whistleblower who says the industry is gambling with our lives. And then we have Satya Nadella, quietly building the infrastructure that powers it all, and Donald Trump, who wants to speed up.

The irony is hard to miss. The people who built the AI train are now telling us to slow down. The people who profit from the AI economy are the ones building the tracks. And the public is caught in the middle, trying to figure out who to believe.

Maybe the most honest thing anyone said came from Jacob Coxon, the 27-year-old researcher who quit. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he wrote. “This is not a marketing stunt”.

If the people building the technology believe it could kill us, perhaps we should listen. Before it’s too late.

(Prof. C. A. Saliya, is a charted accountant, academic, researcher and former banker. He is the author of SAMAJA GAVESHAKAYA and Springer Publication DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH. He can be contacted at saliya.ca@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations with which he is affiliated.)

Features

Preventing grievances from becoming communal

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

Police removing the Thileepan statue

by Jehan Perera

The death sentence on Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan citizen convicted of blasphemy in Saudi Arabia has taken a central place in national consciousness for the past several weeks. It has been in the headline news since it was first reported last month. There have been many initiatives taken locally to get a more lenient sentencing by the Saudi authorities. There is also an undercurrent that is critical of both the culture and religion from which this sentencing emanates. This also sustains the widespread publicity being given nationally to the issue. By way of contrast, the controversy caused by the forcible removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna has not significantly impacted upon the national consciousness. There was only passing mention of the incident in the national media which has been overtaken by other events.

However, in the north and east of the country, and in the diaspora, the removal of the Thileepan statue has become a major issue. It has led to protest marches led by university students and widespread condemnation by civil society and political groups. The issues underlying the Thileepan statue have deep undercurrents in the Tamil consciousness particularly in the north and east which time is unlikely to dispel. The real test of harmony in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Sri Lanka is not whether communities coexist peacefully when nothing controversial is at stake. Rather, the test is how they respond when an event touches their identities and grievances. The death sentence imposed on Anojan in Saudi Arabia and the removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna carry the risk of becoming grievances to entire communities.

In the case of Anojan, a young Tamil migrant worker, he was first sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of three million Saudi riyals over a Facebook comment. Both he and the Saudi prosecution appealed, with the appeal court raising the sentence to death. This has led to public sympathy for him in Sri Lanka.

Appeals for clemency have come from the President, government and opposition leaders, clergy of all faiths and Muslim political leaders. At the same time there is a need to reject attempts to turn the case into a source of anti-Muslim sentiment or collective blame. Peacebuilding therefore has to be within Sri Lanka as well as diplomatic. Religious leaders and civil society in the country should be ready to quell rumour, even as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian leaders stand together publicly.

Thileepan Statue

The Thileepan controversy has had a different trajectory. Many Tamils admire Thileepan, the LTTE name of Rasaiah Parthipan, who died on 26 September 1987 after a twelve-day fast. His demands were addressed to India but included matters pertaining to the Sri Lankan government including the release of detainees held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The statue put up during this year’s commemoration was removed by police in the early hours of 27 September, a day after the commemoration ended. The government’s legal concern, as articulated by its spokesperson, was the LTTE remains a proscribed organisation and before removing the statue, police had presented facts to the court. But law and memory answer different questions and the depth of Tamil anguish cannot be disregarded.

For many Tamils, remembrance of Thileepan is connected to their sense of loss and historical memory. The memorial has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once, and each destruction has added to the meaning it carries. Many who mourn Thileepan are grieving a young man who died without violence and by his own fast. They also grieve an era of loss of the struggle for Tamil rights and self-determination for which Thileepan has become a symbol. The Office for Reparations Act, No. 34 of 2018, provides for collective reparations and gives the Office for Reparations a role in policies on memorialisation. This does not automatically permit any particular statue, nor does it override laws on public places or proscribed organisations. But it shows that memorialisation is recognised within Sri Lanka’s framework for reparations and reconciliation. There is also a wider question of equality.

The JVP that now leads the NPP government was itself once proscribed when it took up arms against the state in which tens of thousands died, later entered democratic politics, and now for many years has publicly commemorated its own fallen. The opportunity to remember those who died should not belong to one community alone.

A commitment to peacebuilding requires that the same trust that has been given to former militants of one community needs to be given to members of other communities if equal citizenship and equal rights are to have meaning. Further, the Office for Reparations Act provides for reparations through livelihood. It is today a fact that those former LTTE members who went through the government’s rehabilitation process find it difficult to get jobs in the private sector.

Private sector employers are reluctant to come under surveillance for employing former LTTE members. There needs to be equal access to employment and removal of unjustified barriers to reintegration, with targeted public programmes where necessary. Until this situation is realized on the ground, the government needs to consider employing those who went through the government’s rehabilitation process and still unable to find suitable employment.

Continuing Peace

The challenge that post-war Sri Lanka faces, a full 17 years after the end of war, is to strengthen the foundations of trust between communities rather than deepen existing suspicions. Anojan is an individual Sri Lankan citizen facing a severe sentence in another country. His case should not become a reason to blame Sri Lankan Muslims. Thileepan is remembered differently by different communities, but the dispute over his memorial should not become a reason to revive the communal divisions of the past. The cases are also mirror images in an important respect. In the Anojan case, the state is an advocate pleading before another government. In the Thileepan case, the state is the actor whose decision is being judged. The first calls for quiet diplomacy and restraint in public language. The second calls for fairness and explanation, and the burden on the state is heavier.

The common roots of the two cases lie in mistrust that does not belong to one community alone. It has been produced by experiences of discrimination, violence, insecurity and loss that have been interpreted differently by different communities. Grievances turn communal when an individual is seen as a representative of a community, when institutions seem to treat communities unequally, and when people feel their pain goes unacknowledged. Each of these can be addressed. The system change that the Sri Lankan people voted for in 2024 would need to include a government that rejects collective blame, acknowledges grief and explains its decisions openly. It also requires state institutions to act transparently and consistently, so that no citizen feels that the law protects some communities more than others.

This peacebuilding imperative requires enlightened leadership as much as legal authority. It requires leaders who will speak to their own communities against prejudice, even when this is politically inconvenient. It requires religious leaders who will demonstrate solidarity across religious boundaries. And it requires civil society to recognise that peacebuilding is not simply preventing violence after tensions have risen, but is addressing the mistrust and grievances that allow tensions to rise in the first place. Sri Lanka has learned, at great cost, that communal divisions can become much larger than the events that initially give rise to them. The Anojan and Thileepan cases give Sri Lanka an opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned from its past. The test of Sri Lanka’s continuing peace is whether we can address difficult grievances without turning them into communal ones.

Features

Sri Lanka Cricket Bill: Governance reform is not yet a cricket strategy – Part II

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Sarath S. Kodithuwakku

President, Institute of Management of Sri Lanka; Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya

(Continued from yesterday)

Representation, Independence and Decision-Making

The membership-based electoral structure should provide representation without becoming a substitute for executive management. The seven Elected Directors would bring the perspectives of the SLC membership into the Board, while the seven Independent Directors would provide additional professional expertise and independence. The model’s effectiveness will, therefore, depend on whether the Board can integrate these perspectives into coherent strategic decisions while maintaining a clear boundary between governance and day-to-day management.

The equal division between Elected and Independent Directors also raises a governance-design question. An even-numbered Board can create a tie. The Bill addresses this directly: in the event of equality, the Chairperson has a casting vote; in the Chairperson’s absence, the Deputy Chairperson has a casting vote; and if both are absent, an Independent Director, elected to preside, has the casting vote. The issue is, therefore, not whether a tie can be resolved, but how this mechanism affects the balance between representation, independence and accountability.

The leadership structure reinforces this balance: the Chairperson is elected from among the Independent Directors and the Deputy Chairperson from among the Elected Directors. The casting-vote arrangement makes the Chairperson’s role and perceived independence particularly important, especially when a major strategic decision divides the two components of the Board.

The Bill’s committee provisions could support a disciplined model of delegation, but implementation will depend heavily on the terms of reference adopted by the new Board. The framework could be strengthened by requiring a published cricket-development strategy, a clear division of powers among the Board, executives and selection committees, transparent principles for major development allocations, and periodic reporting on outcomes across men’s, women’s, schools and domestic cricket. These measures would strengthen accountability without legislating the details of team selection or tournament scheduling.

From Measurement to Strategic Accountability

If the Board is to hold management accountable for strategy rather than simply for short-term results, it needs a performance framework that captures both outcomes and the capabilities that produce them.

SLC should consider requiring an explicit multi-year cricket-development strategy, supported by measurable objectives and an annual strategy review. Such a strategy should identify the development pathway from schools and grassroots cricket through domestic competitions to high performance; define major capability priorities such as coaching, sports science, data and analytics; set resource-allocation principles; and establish indicators against which progress can be assessed.

The purpose would not be to turn cricket into a bureaucratic exercise. Strategic accountability simply creates a disciplined basis for asking whether the organisation is doing what it said it would do, whether its assumptions remain valid, and whether resources are producing the intended results.

From Measurement to Organisational Learning

SLC should, therefore, consider adopting a formal Balanced Scorecard. Rather than measuring success solely through international match results or annual financial audits, the framework could track four interdependent perspectives:

Financial Sustainability:

commercial growth, financial discipline and compliance.

Internal Processes:

domestic tournament quality, development pathways and selector-process integrity.

Stakeholder Value:

grassroots development, school cricket and women’s cricket expansion.

Strategic Capability:

coaching quality, sports science, talent development, data and analytics capability, and the organisation’s ability to convert investment into sustainable performance.

The purpose of such a framework would not be to reduce cricket development to a collection of numbers. Rather, it would create a disciplined process for asking four fundamental management questions:

What did we expect to achieve?

What actually happened?

Why was there a difference?

What should we change as a result?

Evaluating these dimensions periodically would help SLC move beyond performance reporting towards genuine organisational learning.

ICC as a Stakeholder in Governance Reform

The ICC is another important stakeholder whose interests should be recognised in the reform process. SLC’s governance arrangements do not operate solely within Sri Lankan law; they also have to be compatible with the governance obligations associated with ICC membership. The ICC’s Articles of Association require each Member to provide for free and democratic elections (or nominees from outside its members) and to manage its affairs autonomously, without government or other public-body interference in the governance, regulation or administration of cricket.

International experience demonstrates that ICC engagement in member governance restructuring is not unusual. In the United States, after the ICC expelled the old national association for chronic governance failures, the ICC directly oversaw a multi-year project to design a new governance model. The ICC Board formally approved the constitution for a replacement body (USA Cricket) before it was adopted. The resulting structure combined elected constituent directors with independent directors, showing that an ICC-backed framework can accommodate both forms of representation.

In Nepal, the ICC established a Nepal Advisory Group comprising stakeholders from across the game to recommend constitutional amendments, with adoption of the revised constitution and subsequent elections forming part of the conditions for reinstatement of ICC membership.[8] The ICC subsequently facilitated an independent panel that included ICC nominees together with representatives of Nepal’s National Sports Council and the existing cricket administration to map the election process, guidelines and timelines.[9] More recently, in 2026, an ICC delegation visited Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.[10] The ICC has also reported that its Deputy Chair and another ICC Board representative visited Sri Lanka and met relevant stakeholders to assess ongoing developments, while the ICC Board reiterated the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

These precedents make the ICC a legitimate stakeholder in considering the governance implications of the proposed Bill. This does not mean that the ICC should determine Sri Lanka’s domestic legislation, nor that every feature of the Bill requires prior ICC approval. It does, however, suggest that early and formal engagement with the ICC would be prudent, particularly where the proposed arrangements concern Board independence, elections, government involvement and the transition to the new governance structure.

This is particularly relevant because the Bill creates two institutional arrangements that deserve careful scrutiny from an autonomy perspective. The Transformation Committee is responsible for managing the transition until the First Board is constituted, while the Nomination Committee, although structurally independent of the SLC Board, includes representatives connected with the Sports Ministry and the National Sports Council. Neither arrangement, by itself, establishes government interference. However, taken together, they make it important that the independence of the incoming Board is demonstrable through transparent procedures rather than assumed from the structure alone.

Given the professional calibre and international exposure of the members of the Transformation Committee, it would be reasonable to expect that the importance of ICC engagement would have been recognised. Although any such consultation has not been evident in the public domain, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the ICC has either already been consulted or will be consulted before the Bill is enacted. Such engagement would allow potential incompatibilities to be identified before the new structure is enacted and implemented, rather than after the fact.

The Transition Is Itself a Governance Challenge

The transition provisions introduce a significant organisational-change challenge. Replacing the existing club- and association-based governance structure with a new hybrid Board and governance architecture is not simply a legal exercise; it is an organisational change programme. The Sri Lanka Cricket Transformation Committee is required to manage the transition until the First Board is constituted and, during that period, to establish rules covering matters including tournament structure, domestic governance, selection committee appointments, committee terms of reference, the Nomination Committee process and the election of the Elected Directors.

Structural reform on paper can encounter resistance from established interests, institutional habits and existing routines. The implementation phase will therefore require a clear change-management framework, including stakeholder engagement, transparent onboarding for Independent Directors, clarification of decision rights, alignment of legacy committees, and careful transfer of information and responsibilities.

Without attention to these organisational factors, cultural friction could undermine the intended administrative improvements. The success of the reform will therefore depend not only on the text of the legislation but also on the quality of the rules, appointments, delegation arrangements and organisational behaviours that follow it.

From Governance Reform to a Cricket Strategy

The Bill deserves credit for addressing how SLC is constituted and for creating places for specialist advice. It should not be dismissed simply because it does not prescribe a batting order or a domestic fixture list. Those are not appropriate tasks for legislation.

Its limitation is more precise: the proposed governance arrangements do not, by themselves, assure the strategic capability of the Board or the quality, independence and accountability of the decisions made beneath it. They establish the architecture. The future Board and management must supply the strategy, capabilities, discipline and learning mechanisms that make the architecture work.

A stronger reform would connect four elements: a Board selected for collective strategic capability; professional cricket management with clear delegated authority; transparent but non-mechanical selection and investment processes; and systematic evaluation of development outcomes. Within the first of these, information technology and computer science should be recognised as distinct from the broader capability to understand and govern data science, analytics and emerging AI-enabled decision support.

Ultimately, the governing question is not only who gets a seat at the SLC Board table. It is whether that Board can build, fund, execute and learn from a credible strategy for Sri Lankan cricket.

References

1. Department of Government Printing, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Cricket Bill, Gazette Supplement, Part II of September 25, 2026, issued on 28 September 2026.

2. International Cricket Council. Media release, 15 July 2026, reporting the ICC Board discussion of Sri Lanka Cricket and the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

3. Sport New Zealand – Ihi Aotearoa. Nine Steps to Effective Governance, particularly Step 1: Define and Agree the Board’s Role; Step 4: Provide Strategic Leadership; Step 5: Employ and Support a Chief Executive; and Step 8: Get the Right People on Board.

4. Cricket South Africa. Governance and management frameworks, including the delegation-of-authority framework, Board committees, Cricket Committee, Cricket Pipeline Committee and CEO accountability.

5. International Cricket Council. ICC Articles of Association, provisions requiring free and democratic elections and autonomous administration without government or other public-body interference. ICC. https://images.icc-cricket.com/image/upload/prd/f7vm88yw1933dc38cgtg.pdf

6. International Cricket Council. “ICC outlines proposed USACA constitution.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/icc-outlines-proposed-usaca-constitution

7. International Cricket Council. “Approved constitution marks historic landmark for cricket in USA.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/approved-constitution-marks-historic-landmark-for-cricket-in-usa

8. International Cricket Council. “ICC welcomes Nepal Special General Meeting to adopt revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-welcomes-nepal-special-general-meeting-to-adopt-revised-constitution

9. International Cricket Council. “Independent Panel meet to progress Nepal elections under revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/independent-panel-meet-to-progress-nepal-elections-under-revised-constitution

10. International Cricket Council. “ICC delegation visits Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.” ICC, 2026. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-delegation-visits-bangladesh-to-engage-with-stakeholders-on-governance-and-electoral-matters

11. International Cricket Council. “ICC Board approves governance, membership and member support decisions.” ICC, 2026; see also “ICC Board Meeting,” 2026, reporting ICC representatives’ meetings with stakeholders in Sri Lanka. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-board-approves-governance-membership-and-member-support-decisions

(Concluded)