Constitution Making In Sri Lanka: Some Theoretical Reflections
By R. Ramesh –
R. Ramesh
This article attempts to propound some theoretical reflections on constitution making. The present government of Sri Lanka have been engaged in a historically important venture to reform constitution with the aim of addressing socio-economic and political problems of the country. It is also widely anticipated that the new constitution would address the long-standing grievances of the Tamil minorities those who severely affected by the protracted civil war. Nevertheless, drafting constitution in a multi-ethnic societies is extremely challenging task due to various reasons. According to Andrea Bonime-Blanc (1987) ‘constitution-making is at once the most varied and the most concentrated form of political activity during the transition. In it, political maneuvering, bargaining and negotiating takes place and the political positions, agreements and disagreements between different social groups and leaders come to the fore’. How the constitution drafters handle these issues may tell us crucial things about the transition and about the regime it leads up to. The discrepancies between the words agreed to in the constitution and the political reality that emerges may point to potential serious future conflicts. The general character of both the process and its outcome may reveal clues about the new regime’s potential for stability or instability. The reason for being the process challenging is constitution is the supreme law of the land and which drives the rulers towards democratic governance within the legal framework. Although constitution-making in transition is a difficult task, a country usually has no choice but to perform it. In the same way, Paczolay (1993) argues that drafting and adopting a new constitution for a cleavage society entering a new period of existence is hard but as the same time it is also an earnest and exceptional task.
Thailand had faced this dilemma. There was a question of whether 1996-1997 was the right time for conducting the constitution-making or whether the enormous efforts involved would not have been better directed to the economic crisis. Thailand’s answer was that the economic and constitutional issues were “inextricably linked” in addressing the issue of good governance. In fact, the economic crisis made the path of Thailand constitutional reform much easier than was expected. Numerous thinkers have defined constitution in various forms in which the following statement aptly indicates the importance of a constitution.
After adoption of the US constitution, Thomas Pain (1972) a well-known political scientist stated that ‘constitution is a not an act of government but of a people constituting a government, and government without a constitution, is power without rights’. Importantly, constitution itself changing dynamics, therefore it should adopt the changing reality considering various socio-economic and political factors. According to Venter (1999) ‘there is no such thing as a ‘final’ constitution, because a national constitution is as alive as the state, consisting of a multitude of thinking human beings, for whom it exists.
