Editorial

In Sri Lanka, sovereignty is with the people, says the introduction to the country’s Constitution, but these very people must have surely lost track of the political manoeuvring that has gone on in recent years with their representatives and the many attempts at tinkering with the Fundamental Law of the nation.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution (22A) is now on the table of the country’s legislators, and the theatrics around it is a classic example. To begin with, it is titled the 22A but if and when it is passed, it will be called 21A because 21A was never enacted. Now, the fate of 22A is also in the balance.

The ruling coalition has split into various amoebic cells and the Opposition is seemingly not in favour. The multitude of political parties, breakaway factions and groups that form Parliament cannot make up their collective minds as to whether they want to continue with the Executive Presidential system introduced 34 years ago, whether to scrap it and revert to a Parliamentary system, or whether to have a hybrid system like now and that too with the Executive Presidency at the helm of state affairs, or otherwise – where Parliament runs the show with an executive Prime Minister.

It is clear that the vagaries of support or opposition as the case may be for the continuation of the Executive Presidency depend on which side of the political fence one is on at a given time. It is very much like the political parties that once got onto the streets opposing the Provincial Council system, now demanding elections for them as they see the benefits that can accrue to them from it rather than for the people and the country.

Arguments thrown about in support of the Executive Presidency continuing can be on one singular track in some respects rather than its overall outcome. One argument is that as long as Provincial Councils remain, an Executive Presidency is required lest Councils (read North and East PCs) opt to run away with the Centre’s clothes, going their independent ways. India, a Parliamentary system, has federal states with more powers than PCs but at any time the Centre can impose Presidential rule over any state. Then, it is argued that the JVP and LTTE uprisings were crushed by an Executive Presidency, but the 1971 JVP insurrection was quelled by a Prime Minister. So was World War II won by Britain.

The problem with constitutional reforms has been when governments try to introduce controversial clauses together with those that have no common acceptance in one ‘package’ as President Chandrika Kumaratunga ventured to do.

Even in 22A, there are many worthwhile clauses such as the re-introduction of the Constitutional Councils which despite shortcomings went a long way in buttressing the independent Commissions with apolitical members giving some credibility to good governance. The need to have these Commissions resurrected after they were created by 17A, killed by 18A, revived by 19A and killed again by 20A is a sorry tale of how confusedly the “uththareetara” (supreme) national assembly voted, ironically the same member voting for and against as the Party Whip commanded.

The Fundamental Law has some fundamental flaws that need to be ironed out. That, however, firstly needs the confusion in the minds of the legislators cleared as to what they want not just for themselves, but what those they represent want.

Not the time for controversial bills

No sooner the Government doused incendiary rhetoric from an ill-advised, patently illegal Gazette that was issued to declare High Security Zones (HSZs) in and around Colombo under an archaic law meant for something else, up pops a draft piece of legislation that has detractors up in arms again.

A ‘Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill’ is now being challenged and critiqued, raising questions whether the authorities were overtly rehabilitating drug addicts and ex-combatants (of the LTTE), but covertly trying to ‘re-educate’ radicalised youth seen in relentless street protests these days. It brought back echoes of the ominous Mao Zedong and worse, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regimes sending the bourgeoise-educated to labour camps for rehab in the countryside to assimilate Communist ideology.

The Government does appear seriously concerned that there are sinister moves to whip up the middle classes to join the masses against the State machinery, (Parliament, Supreme Court etc.,) not merely the Government. Already, such voices are being heard. In the backdrop of the recent ‘Aragalaya’, the Government’s moves to neutralise these attempts cannot be mere optics.

However, these rehabilitation programmes are not new. The Government insists it is only upgrading a long-existent Gazette that provided for rehabilitation centres to a law and thought of much long before the Aragalaya; that in the aftermath of the 1971 JVP insurgency, youth who were ‘misled’ – and survived, were sent for rehabilitation and so too LTTE cadres. These programmes have, by and large, enabled these ‘misguided’ youth who followed megalomaniac leaders promising a utopia in the South and North to lead ‘normal’ lives.

The draft Bill unfortunately lumps members of ‘violent extremist groups’ together with drug-dependent persons and ex-combatants who require treatment and rehabilitation, which is why the Government is skating on thin ice.

There is a growing understanding that a security-based response to violent extremism should be accompanied by a focus on more preventive efforts – mindful of the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors of youth towards radicalisation. They point to feelings of disenfranchisement, marginalisation, discrimination, and the co-relation between economic variables being drivers of violent extremism. There is a significant socio-economic element too as evidenced in the sadistic ragging that takes place in the universities with even the Deans under threat of violence at the hands of extremist groups. Those vociferous advocates of constitutional rights of the citizen maintain a deafening silence on behalf of the civil liberties and right to education of victims of ragging as it is not as fashionable to speak out for them.

While the Government wants to stamp out a continuous campaign of political destabilisation, it must do so in a conducive environment and with appropriate laws. There seems to be a trend, as was seen in the HSZ Gazette, to introduce needlessly controversial laws at this point of time. The genesis of these drafts that keep landing on the Presidential desk needs exploration.