Constitutional Reforms: A Brief Survey Of Our Past & Present
C.V. Wigneswaran
Following my request addressed to the Swiss Ambassador to invite to Jaffna the Swiss Institute for Federalism of Fribourg, Switzerland for a series of Seminars and Conferences on devolution of power, Mr. Davide Vignati, First Secretary, Political Affairs of the Embassy of Switzerland, Colombo contacted Dr. Eva Maria Belser who is here, the Director of the Institute who confirmed her availability. It is she who identified Professor Nico Steytler from Cape Town and Mr. Maurizio Maggetti to accompany her. I had considered such a Seminar urgent on account of the Constitutional drafting process which was being put in motion early this month.
Thus with the support of the Institute for Constitutional Studies of Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne we have jointly organized this Seminar. I considered the Hon. Members of the Eastern Province important since our political problems are intertwined and sufficient knowledge in respect of the subject in hand was critically needed not only by us in the Northern Provincial Council but also by the Members of the Eastern Provincial Council.
I had suggested the University fraternity as well as the Civil Society too be given this opportunity. I am glad it has been possible to arrange such a Seminar for them too this afternoon and tomorrow respectively. While the Seminar today will predominantly be a platform from which our Resource Persons, Professor Eva Maria Belser of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Maurizio Maggetti, Research Fellow at the Institute of Federalism (Incidentally he has worked in Sri Lanka with the Berghof Foundation and Sarvodaya) and Professor Nico Steytler of the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa would be sharing their knowledge and wisdom, both theoretical and practical on the whole issue of different constitutional models for power sharing during this two hours’ session, their inputs would be beneficial to all of us Sri Lankans to identify constitutional mechanisms that would suit our particular ethnic background and context. Solutions would have to be later identified on the basis of the knowledge we receive to suit the existing circumstances.
Let me give a brief survey of our past and present.
97 years ago two Sinhala political leaders Sir James Peiris and Mr.E.J. Samarawickrema wrote and pointed out to a National Leader and Tamil, Sir Ponnampalam Arunachalam, that the Tamils have been the majority in their own areas from time immemorial while the Sinhalese have been in their areas. Those areas could be identified more or less to fit in with the Northern and Eastern Provinces from where most of our honourable Members present here have come from on the one side and the rest of the Provinces to the South of these two Provinces on the other.
Though there have been a tendency to doctor and change history after 1956 the statement by those two Sinhala Leaders are still accepted as historically correct. The two communities Tamil and Sinhala have occupied this Island from time immemorial. The existence of the Kingdom of the Tamils or the Jaffna Kingdom upto the coming of the Western Nations have been historically recognized.
