National Question Can Be Solved Only By Power Sharing
By Veluppillai Thangavelu –March 6, 2016
Veluppillai Thangavelu
On January 25 this year Opposition and Thamil National Alliance (TNA) Leader R. Sampanthan left for London and then to the Scottish capital Edinburgh accompanied by his trusted lieutenant Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, MP. Sampanthan’s visit to Scotland coincided with the government taking steps to draft a new Constitution.
Scottish experience
Both Sampanthan and Sumanthiran participated at a constitutional workshop held to explore possible alternatives for political solution to the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. It was held under the patronage of academics affiliated to Edinburgh University, with lessons to be learnt from Scottish experience in the United Kingdom and to study the devolution of power sharing by Scotland under Britain’s Westminster system.
Many mistakenly believe that Scotland is sharing power with United Kingdom (UK) under a federal system. The constitution of UK is not federal but unitary. Scotland is a good example of country that enjoys devolved powers within a ‘unitary’ constitution. In fact, unlike many other countries, the UK has no single constitutional document, it has an unmodified or “unwritten” constitution. Much of the British constitution is embodied in written documents, in statutes, court judgments, works of authority and treaties. The core principles of the British constitution are (1) parliamentary supremacy, and (2) rule of law.
The UK comprises four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, it is a unitary state, not a federation (like Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Russia or the United States), nor a confederation (like pre-1847 Switzerland, the former Serbia and Montenegro or Canada).
Although Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have legislatures and executives, England does not. The authority of all these bodies is dependent on Acts of Parliament and that they can in principle be abolished at the will of the Parliament of the UK. An example of a legislature that was created by Act of Parliament and later abolished is the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which was set up by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and abolished, in response to political violence in Northern Ireland. However, Northern Ireland has since been given another legislative assembly under the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
Difference between Federal and Unitary
