Proposal For New Constitution: Kandy Forum’s Submission
The Kandy Forum has submitted the following proposal to the Public representation Committee on Constitutional Reforms:
Constitutional Solution for Territorial and Non-territorial Ethnic Minorities Some Proposals for Constitutional Reform
We, the members of the Kandy forum, a research and advocacy group focused on the areas of national unity, co-existence, religious tolerance and social integration, welcome the Government’s proposal for constitutional reform that would fulfill their commitment to the people to promote post war reconciliation, ethnic harmony and power sharing and also to build Sri Lanka as a united plural society, thereby preventing further conflicts and war taking place in the future.
We wish to submit the following proposals toward the making of the new constitution in order to meaningfully achieve the objectives of constitutional reform.
1. Power sharing at the regional level
Power sharing has come to be understood in terms of ethnicity and territoriality. Power sharing at the regional level is a demand put forward by the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists from the early period of independence in the face of deeply felt grievances as regards discrimination, and Sinhala majoritarianism, which led to repeated ethnic violence and thirty years of war and destruction in this country.
With Indian Intervention materializing in the Indo Lanka Accord of 1987 and the 13th amendment of the constitution, the Provincial Council system was introduced with the conditional merger of the North and East. The people of the Eastern Province were not consulted about this decision to merge the north and the east. However, the Supreme Court demerged the provinces in 2006, and at present we have separate Provincial Councils with limited powers in operation, less than what was proposed in the 13th amendment.
The current moment is an opportunity to reflect on regional autonomy and to enable the establishment of autonomous regional or provincial councils which are beneficial not only to the Tamils of the North and East but also to the people living in the other parts of the country who need power sharing and decentralization.
Therefore, the Kandy Forum proposes that the existing Provincial Council system shall be retained and that more powers be devolved to the Provinces, curtailing the powers of the Provincial Governors.
2. The Eastern Province
Re-merging the Northern and Eastern Provinces should be ruled out, as it is not a pragmatic demand given that the Muslims and Sinhalese and also some section of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the Eastern Province do not want to re-merge the two Provinces. Further, it should be taken into consideration that, the Tamils in the Eastern Province are a minority consisting only 39.79 % of the total population of the Province.
We are of the opinion that the demand for a noncontiguous separate Muslim Province in the East is politically and pragmatically not suitable to the needs of the community and that it further complicates the existing ethnic problem; therefore, we strongly oppose the idea of setting up a separate province for Muslims.
The Eastern Province could be a model for co-existence of communities in Sri Lanka. It is the only Province in Sri Lanka that has a near equal ethnic balance, where the Tamils constitute 39.79%, Muslims constitute 36.72% and the Sinhalese constitute 23.15%. It is an ideal situation for the evolution of a model for ethnic pluralism, good governance and peaceful coexistence and this province could be equipped with special constitutional provisions to strengthen inter-ethnic relationships within and between other regions.
