{"id":108160,"date":"2020-10-28T18:15:48","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T01:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108160"},"modified":"2020-10-28T18:15:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T01:15:48","slug":"sri-lankan-lawyers-deliberately-kept-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/28\/sri-lankan-lawyers-deliberately-kept-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankan Lawyers Deliberately Kept Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Senior Lawyer – Sri\u00a0 Lanka Study Circle\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

[I refer to the article  appearing in the  Daily FT on the 22nd<\/sup>  titled \u2018 History repeating \u2013 Are we going to\nlose MCC or not by <\/em><\/strong> an\ninternational development expert– <\/strong>]   <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is understandable if   a \nnon-lawyer does not  understand\nthe   Legal Packages  included \nin the MCC   to change the land\npolicy of the country and to change   \nthe  land law of the country to\nthe Australian law to suit  the expansion\n of large-scale industrial farming complex    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Australian law is known as the  Torrens\nlaw or Title registration<\/strong>.  The law\nwhich took away the rights of the indigenous people of Australia  in 1858, \nwhere farming and grazing\nlands were  often used and managed\ncommunally under customary laws.   Sri Lanka has \ngiven a Sinhala  name Bim Saviya <\/strong>to the law, curiously\nrepeated in the  MCC. This is a  misnomer as this  law \nmakes lands untenable for owners, specially farmers and  accessible for sale and mortgage with the\nelimination of traditional land rights  that had existed in the country for 100 years.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan Lawyers Ignored at Inception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MCC was created after the Government coordinated with   the  \nMCC of  USA  in partnership with    the Harvard \nUniversity\u2019s Centre  for\nInformation International Development to introduce a document known as the   Sri Lanka Constraints Analysis Report.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the compact development process   efforts\nwere made by the Government to keep the US \nEmbassy , USAID, and other US Government \nActors updated on the land interventions under consideration according\nto the MCC  Annex 1\u201433.<\/em><\/strong>  <\/em> It\nis unpardonable that  efforts were  not made to keep the   BRILLIANT LAND LAWYERS and the SRI\nLANKAN  ACTORS updated on the land\nintervention.  They researched and\npublished the following that   provided\n solutions for the  functioning of an efficient  land market —-1] Amendments to the Bim Saviya Act\n21   1998 by the  Bar Association  2] Samarasekera Committee Report .  A committee appointed by President Mahinda\nRajapakse.  They   concluded  that \nit  is an   impossible task to forcibly register land\nunder Bim Saviya and this  was totally\nunworkable. The Law Reform Commission has also consistently opposed compulsory\nimplementation of the foreign law.     \n3]  The amendments to the colonial\nstatutes   by a committee appointed by\nthe Ministry of Justice to prevent fraud [when Mr Milinda  Morogoda was the Minster]    4] Reports from the Banks of Sri Lanka  by legal officers who are experts in land\nownership laws.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three legal\npackages included in the MCC Land Project <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                       1st<\/sup>\nLegal package .    MCC directs\n to \n implement Bim Saviya the\nAustralian law, which the government failed to implement for the past 20 years.\nMCC has   offered to manage it for 5 years  according to Annex 1 \u2013page 30 and Annex 1\u2014page\n31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    MCC of  USA and the Harvard  University\u2019s Centre  for Information International Development;  were they not aware; that the    implementation of Bim Saviya  attempted by the Government failed for 20\nyears, because  they could not  register the ownership rights of the poor\ntraditional farmers.   Is it\ncorrect to exclude from the e register  rights of owners  essential for paddy cultivation and small\nfarming such as,   Ande\ncultivation rights  of paddy lands\n,Co-ownership  rights , right of Pre-emption\n  and\nRights to waterways.   The Bim Saviya law\n  even eliminates all the inheritance laws  of the Sinhalese, Tamils and the Muslims\naccording to the   Samarasekera Committee\nreport. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                       Failure of Bim Saviya  was also due to  the period required  to implement  Bim Saviya which was estimated to be  over  100 years,  according to the  Performance Report of 2018 issued by the  government. \nttps:\/\/www.parliament.lk\/uploads\/documents\/paperspresented\/performance-report-land-title-settlement-department-2018.pd.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                        Although\nthe government had consented to the MCC,  according to the World Bank\u2019s ICR report,  Sri Lanka\u2019s titling project Bim Saviya   was  a failure as the laws of the country does not\nfit into the legal framework of Australia that does not recognise rights of our\nlocal farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.http:\/\/documents1.worldbank.org\/curated\/en\/996161474635250504\/pdf\/000020051-20140617135844.pdf<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                        2nd<\/sup>\nlegal packge  Includes a strict\norder,  that is  government lands must be   privatised and be governed by the Title\nregistration law another name for Bim Saviya  before signing the MCC .  This is for the poor to obtain bank loans.  All who\nsupport the MCC  should refer the \nbooks authored by Hon Justice A.R.B Amerasinghe and Justice\nWeeramanthry  to realise the untruth In\nSri Lanka, it  is common knowledge\nthat the banks are not interested in \u2018ownership deeds\u2019, Banks are  interested in the loan applicants\u2019   financial statements,   to determine whether they are credit worthy. The\nbanks  grant loans for lease hold\ninterest of government land.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                      3rd<\/sup>\nlegal package  [Section 3\u20149  \nand Annex 1\u201429]   MCC to attend to the preparation of the e\nregister under the law of Bim Saviya . \nThis is  presently not necessary\nas the\ne-register (e-LR) is almost  completed\nand  can be  operated without changing to a foreign law,  according to the Electronic Transaction Act 19\nof 2006 <\/strong> based on the\nstandards established by United Nations Commission on International Trade Law\n(UNCITRAL) .     <\/em><\/strong> which specifies that deeds are required [ Bim\nSaviya  takes away deeds ] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gift 67 Million Cost\nMillions More  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bim Saviya introduces a massive economic burden to   the  \nGovernment?  <\/em>The   government has to set up an \u2018Assurance Fund\u2019  to provide monetary compensation to land\nowners in lieu of judicial remedies as the  law repeals \nthe rights of land  owners to\naccess court. Can the funding agencies   compel nations to   reduce their  judicial authority ?   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The E register is almost complete. \u00a0\u00a0Do we need funding\u00a0 \u00a0from the MCC , to introduce a law that will be an economic burden to the government, to introduce a foreign law which takes a period of 100 years to be implemented or have only 5 million beneficiaries as given in the MCC for a period of 20 years[ MCC Annex 1\u201420] . I am sure the Hon President and the Hon Prime Minster\u00a0 will look into this matter. Present parliamentarians\u00a0\u00a0 and\u00a0 Sri Lankans may not be aware that changes\u00a0 to our\u00a0 land law was pushed by the World Bank as far back from\u00a0 1960s. \u00a0However, \u00a0thanks to \u00a0our \u00a0legal luminaries like Hon Justice A.R.B. Amerasinghe and erudite and honest politicians like Mr T B Ilangaratne , the President of the Law society, Governor of the Central Bank Mr William Tenekoon, these intentions never translated to realities. They provided local solutions for \u00a0a\u00a0 functioning land\u00a0 market \u00a0where the poor could get loans from banks. Their \u00a0\u00a0esteem\u00a0 collaboration to prevent the Australian law is given \u00a0in Hon Justice\u00a0 Amerasinghe\u2019s book– Title Insurance.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(<\/em>srilankastudycircle@yahoo.comcom<\/em><\/strong><\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Senior Lawyer – Sri\u00a0 Lanka Study Circle\u00a0 [I refer to the article  appearing in the  Daily FT on the 22nd  titled \u2018 History repeating \u2013 Are we going to lose MCC or not by  an international development expert– ]   It is understandable if   a  non-lawyer does not  understand the   Legal Packages  included  in the MCC   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sri-lanka-study-circle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108160","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=108160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}