{"id":105608,"date":"2020-08-17T16:38:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T23:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105608"},"modified":"2020-08-17T16:38:30","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T23:38:30","slug":"constitutional-reforms-sri-lanka-needs-economic-federalism-and-political-administration-in-a-unitary-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/17\/constitutional-reforms-sri-lanka-needs-economic-federalism-and-political-administration-in-a-unitary-system\/","title":{"rendered":"CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS: SRI LANKA NEEDS ECONOMIC FEDERALISM AND POLITICAL ADMINISTRATION IN A UNITARY SYSTEM"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sri\nLanka has been confronting critical issues in constitutional reforms since\nindependence, and many issues were underwater until 1970, in spite of receiving\na dominion status in 1947 with a written constitution, constitutional reforms\nseemed to be a demand of academic and students. &nbsp;The constitutional reforms had been limited by\nthe lack of parliament power (a two-third majority), and the election in 1970\ngave the essential power in the parliament to a coalition government with SLFP,\nLSSP, and CP then began constitutional reforms. Although the ruling party\ngained a two-third majority in the parliament, a large volume of people\nrepresented the opposition with supports for constitutional reforms or without\nsupport for reforms. Constitutional reforms have contributed to political talk\nshows of loquacious people, and neglect the public demand for government\nintervention in policy-making for economic prosperity with the balanced growth\nprocess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A\nlarge sum of funds spent on constitutional reforms and economically Sri Lanka\ngained nothing from the constitutional reform process than creating political\ndifferences and racial hates. The plurality of the population had no\nunderstanding or interest in constitutional matters and the contents of various\nclauses of the constitution are not apprehended by the public as they are\nrelated to legal matters. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nconcept of constitutional reforms has created internal conflicts, armed struggles,\nand hate within a small volume of population.&nbsp;\nNow many people say constitutions reforms relate to personal matters or\nfamily matters than the requirement of the country.&nbsp; After the general election held in 2020,\nconstitutional reforms have come again to doorsteps of people, and the new\nminister appointed for justice affairs has publicly expressed that cabinet\npapers are ready to dismiss the 19<sup>th<\/sup> amendment to the constitution replaced\nby the 20<sup>th<\/sup> amendment. As the amendment has not published, nobody\nknows what are contents in the amendment. The major question is, could the\nproposed constitutional reforms be united the divided community and if so how\ncould be done it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition to the basic idea, some people clamor to cancel the 13<sup>th<\/sup>\namendment that created the provincial councils with a view to satisfying the\nTamil community as the government at that time wrongfully believed that the\ncreation of provincial councils would be an effective solution or a viable\nalternative to eradicate racial hates, and the war had been in the country\nbetween the government forces and LTTE terrorists mainly focused on creating a\nseparated state in the North and East or a creating a combined provincial\ncouncil with numerous power. Practical results reflect that the Tamil community\nhas divided with the result of creating provincial councils than they were\nunder a unitary structure of the constitution. Ordinary Tamil people in North\nand East gained nothing from constitutional reforms in the 13<sup>th<\/sup>\namendment, but few leaders may have gained for job opportunities. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tamil\nleaders expected more power to provincial councils such as the power to\ncombining councils and others when enacted the 13<sup>th<\/sup> amendment, the\npolice power and land powers to councils were not given, and many others such\nas the power to borrowing from overseas and to maintain the relationships with\noverseas countries reflecting a federal status or beyond the federal framework\nignored as it was a creating a separate state. Mr.J.R.Jayawardane, the\npresident of Sri Lanka at that time refused additional demands and agreed only\nto the delegation of central government power that considered appropriate to\nprovincial councils for economic, social, and cultural developments in the area\nwith strict supervision of the central government. A concrete argument of\nMr.J.R.Jayawardane was Sri Lanka as one country should allow North and East to\naccommodate for people in the Western and Southern provinces when population\nexplosion experience in these provinces.&nbsp;\nIf additional power is given to provincial councils it would be creating\nproblems in the country.&nbsp; The Indian\nadvisors also viewed that allowing more political power to the provincial\ncouncil could be a threat to India because LTTE terrorists intended to recreate\nthe Vijayanagar Empire with a part of India and other Asian countries.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nreality of the 13<sup>th<\/sup> amendment was economically disadvantaged to the\ncountry because a large sum of government funds absorbed into unproductive\nprovincial councils administration and economically provincial council administration\ncreated fiscal problems, inflation, and many problems to the monetary policy of\nthe central bank. When compared to ideological gains received by the North and\nEast people they cannot equalize the economic gains received by the country.\nThe purpose of creating the provincial council was to helping economic\ndecisions to improve the life of poor people in North and East as well as\npeople in other areas of the country.&nbsp;\nThe experience is more than 30 years in the past indicates that\nprovincial councils are a whited sepulcher.&nbsp;\nIf provincial councils dismissed the government can save a large sum of\nmoney and use them for the development purposes of the provinces. However, it\nmay be a problem not only for people in the North and East but also to people in\nother areas too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\n13<sup>th<\/sup> amendment has not supported to procreate economic federalism\ndespite the support to maintain a unitary system in political\nadministration.&nbsp; Economic federalism\nradically supports economic decision making at the provincial level and supports\nfor balanced growth in the country. Since Donomore ameliorates economic\ndecision-making at the provincial level was neglecting while the balanced\ngrowth has been gone to a unitary system that means economic decision-making\nand planning have gone to government bureaucrats, who are in the Colombo city.\nTop to bottom budgeting has been the priority Sri Lanka has become an economy\ndepending on foreign debt, importing all items that could be produced in the\ncountry but the colonial government wanted a centralized system to control the\ncountry using bureaucracy. &nbsp;Several\nmembers of the state council (Mr.D.S. Senanayake, Mr.C.W.W Kannangara) wanted\neconomic federalism giving justice to regional Sri Lanka.&nbsp; People in Sri Lanka want economic federalism\nthat supports for economic planning and decision-making in regional. &nbsp;To provide water to rural farmers, open\nschools to educate rural kids, provide language skills (English) to rural\npeople, and the ability to convert the current depending economy to a\nproduction economy. The economy cannot manage properly giving benefits to\nregional Sri Lanka by a unitary system that makes decisions from Colombo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under\nthe reign of Kings and Queens, Sri Lanka had strong economic federalism and a\nunitary system in political administration. The economic federalism supported\nKing Parakramabahu the great to export rice and the unitary system in political\nadministration supported King Gajabu to invade India and bring back Sinhala\npeople and additional South Indians and settle near the seaside area. Therefore,\nconstitutional reforms in the country should be supporting task that\nstrengthens economic federalism and political unitary system to keep Sri Lanka\nas a strong country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some\npeople express that the protection of peoples\u2019 sovereignty is a major\nexpectation of constitutional reforms and for this purpose, appointing members\nfrom the national list and bonus MPs should be dismissed and the number of\nmembers to parliament limits to 100. The election system should be maintained\nbased on electorates and not proportional representation. After the election in\n2020, there are complaints that some electorates have no members. The president\nand representatives to legislature must be elected by votes of people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\n19th amendment degraded the concept of people\u2019s sovereignty helping to appoint representatives\nfrom a national list, who cannot obtain required supports from people. If\npeople want to elect professionals to parliament it would be an issue because\nmany professionals in various fields don\u2019t like to engage in politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Sri Lanka has been confronting critical issues in constitutional reforms since independence, and many issues were underwater until 1970, in spite of receiving a dominion status in 1947 with a written constitution, constitutional reforms seemed to be a demand of academic and students. &nbsp;The constitutional reforms had been limited by the lack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}