The 13th Amendment: Is It The Best Model To Share Power?
Dinesh Dodamgoda
As soon as Mr. Maithripala Sirisena became the President of Sri Lanka, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the British Tamil Forum (BTF) issued statements and reminded President-elect the need to “urgently” address the minority’s concerns. BTFstated that only a political solution recognising the right to self-determination of the Tamil nation in Sri Lanka can address core issues of autonomy to the Tamil people,de-militarisation of the Tamil areas and cooperation with the UNHRS’s international inquiry.
The TNA and the BTF statements indicate a solution that aims at sharing power on the basis of the principle of “territoriality”. Territoriality uses geographical areas to create and administer autonomous regions. The principle of territorial power sharing was initially recommended as a second tier of government by the Donoughmore Commissioners in 1928. However, it was recommended not to address Tamil nationalist concerns, yet to bring structural changes to the constitution to reduce the level of centralisation that the British rulers used in order to consolidate the power of the colonial state.
Territoriality in SL
The principle of territoriality was adopted to guide negotiations on power-sharing between the Centre and the ‘national areas’ of the Tamils by the Federal party (FP) in the mid-1950s to claim ‘separate historical past’ of the Tamils that the FP claimed. After several unsuccessful attempts in 1957, 1960 and 1964-65, a second tier of government was adopted by the introduction of District Councils in 1981 as a result of negotiations between the United National Party (UNP) government and the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the successor of the FP.
After the riots in 1983, the TULF and the Indian government insisted in abandoning the District Council system in order to bring a larger administrative system, the provincial councils in 1987. The Provincial Council system was adopted and incorporated as the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution of 1978 as a result of pressure from the Indian government. The provincial councils were modelled on the power of the states of the Indian Union, yet preserved the Sri Lankan unitary system.Read More
