Can Sri Lanka's Constitutional Reforms Help the Tamil Minority?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Sri Lanka’s institutional reform project has gathered momentum with the enactment of the 19th amendment to its constitution in 2015. The amendment restored the Constitutional Council, which is mandated to recommend and approve appointments to key independent institutions and offices.

It also restructured the presidency by empowering the prime minister within the political executive, empowering parliament against the executive, and enabling a limited but significant avenue of judicial review over official presidential acts.

The 19^th amendment also reintroduced the two-term limit on the presidency and shortened the term of both the President and Parliament from six to five years.

In these ways, the hyper-presidential model has been substantially pruned back to a much more democratic model of semi-presidentialism.

All this is to the good. As well, there is now further debate on whether the executive presidential system, which was introduced to Sri Lanka in 1978, should be retained, reformed or abolished altogether, perhaps replaced by a Westminster prime ministerial system.

But this won’t suffice, because meaningful constitutional transformation requires the transformation of the majoritarian socio-political and cultural norms that underpin Sri Lanka’s constitutional order.

For instance, right now Sri Lanka’s constitution obligates the state to protect and foster Buddhism, the religion of the majority Sinhala population, while assuring the rights and freedoms of other faiths. 

By explicitly creating a special status for Buddhism, the constitution retains the potential to discriminate against the Hindu Tamil and Muslim minorities and so undermine the fundamental principle of equality. 

Sri Lanka is deemed a Sinhala Buddhist country and those of different faith or ethnicity, it is claimed, migrated from elsewhere and are not part of the native population of the island.

This is all the more dangerous in the aftermath of the ruinous three-decades of war against the Tamil Tigers, with its destruction of much of the country.

An upsurge of Buddhist nationalism has been spearheaded by radical Buddhist monks. Several new organisations – most importantly Bodu Bala Sena – appeared a few years after the end of the civil war.

The election of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as president in November clearly reinforces this and doesn’t bode well. One of the country’s Sinhala hard-liners, his past record as well as his prominently nationalistic security-based campaign suggests that his presidency will be one of executive aggrandisement rather moderation.

He served as defence secretary between 2005 and 2015 and stands accused of war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war.

In his inaugural speech he pledged to lead the government based on “Buddhist philosophy” and to support the Sinhalese culture and Buddhist heritage.

To make his point, the ceremony was held at a Buddhist temple in the northern city of Anuradhapura built by Sinhala ruler Dutugamunu, who defeated the Tamil Chola King Ellalan in the Battle of Vijithapura and united the island under Sinhala rule almost 2,200 years ago.

If there is ever to be true power-sharing, Sri Lanka must move from a unitary state to a federal division of powers, allowing the Tamils in the northern and eastern areas their own subsidiary jurisdictions. As well, a bill of rights for all its citizens must be given “teeth.”

But none of this is likely in a Rajapaksa regime.