{"id":120440,"date":"2021-11-19T16:32:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T23:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120440"},"modified":"2021-11-19T16:32:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T23:32:03","slug":"combining-anti-discrimination-laws-in-the-proposed-new-constitution-as-a-successful-solution-to-ethnic-and-religious-problems-in-sri-lanka-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/11\/19\/combining-anti-discrimination-laws-in-the-proposed-new-constitution-as-a-successful-solution-to-ethnic-and-religious-problems-in-sri-lanka-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"COMBINING ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS IN THE PROPOSED NEW CONSTITUTION AS A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION TO ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS IN SRI LANKA PART 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It has been reported that a draft constitution has felicitously\nbeen completed by the constitutional committee, which was appointed by the\npresident. The draft constitution was written by lawyers who were capable of\nlegal drafting and critically looking at legal issues in the document. When\ndrafting a constitution, the legal aspect is not only the area that people are\nconcerned but also many aspects that are related to people. Especially in Sri\nLanka, ethnic, cultural, and religious issues are vital aspects to consider by\nthe drafting committee. If these issues are ignored, the peace that needs for\nthe progress of people wouldn\u2019t be achieved. The legal aspect of a constitution\nis too difficult to decide just by looking at the draft because the later\nlaw-making process would be subjected to refer the contents of the new constitution\nto the court, which will review the legality of the content and how the\ncontents are applied in the future environment and it may need rewording and\nreforming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People do not know many points referred to in the\ndraft constitution that they may in disagreement with the rights of ethnic and\nreligious groups. Since 1947, several constitutions had been drafted, and\nlimited numbers of drafted constitutions were approved by the parliament and\nethnic and religious minority groups had been in disagreement with several\naspects of the completed drafts as they are questioning some areas of the\ncurrent constitution. It needs debating at least two years by people and\nfinally, a refined draft should be approved by the legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic struggle of people does not encourage\ndebate points in the draft document and the draft presented by the previous\ngovernment also commented only a small group of people motivated by politicians\nand Buddhist monks. The actual situation is many people do not know about the\nconstitution and related requirements. The knowledge of how the proposed\nconstitution affects various affairs of people would be a matter that would\narise in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus of this article is the requirement of\ncombining anti-discrimination laws with the new constitution and treating\npeople in the country as one country one nation. All groups in Sri Lanka like\nin many other countries antidiscrimination laws becoming a part of the\nconstitution, despite the current practice of different ethnic and religious\ngroups which are highly bias toward the practices of certain groups. The\nfundamental truth is, despite the identity of various ethnic groups in Sri\nLanka, all are anthropologically Indian human groups.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka has a major issue that is related to\nproviding economic opportunities and the elimination of economic disparities\nrelated to people because of legal or constitutional hindrances that might or\nmight not relate to the major issue of people. This means that although the\ncountry could give equal opportunities to engage in economic activities, equity\nin economic status cannot give everyone because of the disparity in the social\nsystem and the ownership of capital to invest in economic activities. The\nability to take part in economic activities would be a hindrance resulting the capital\nownership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, ethnic and religious problems have been a\nsignificant barrier to giving equity and justice from an economic sense rather\nthan pursuing unimportant issues. Ethnic and religious issues in the country\nhave become a barrier to engaging in economic activities as global level Sri\nLanka\u2019s products and services are subject to the effect of regulation and\npreference of overseas countries consuming goods and services of Sri\nLanka.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anti-discrimination laws in the country are\nescalated in various areas and it is a hard task to identify and combine them.\nMany people have questioned whether Sri Lanka respects laws against\ndiscrimination and as an answer to this issue it needs to combine all\nanti-discrimination laws in the new constitution. Discrimination is not a\nfamiliar term in Sri Lanka\u2019s society as people have been using discrimination\nas a right in history. Although many people are reluctant to state publicly that\ndiscrimination works as a right in society such disgraceful acts should have\nbeen eliminated since the introduction of the Donomore constitution in history.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, I can remember I had been subjected to\ndiscrimination in the workplace using various countenances, and managers also\nassociated with discriminators for enjoyment and jealousy. Discrimination is a\nbroader term that could happen by words of mouth as well as direct or indirect\nactions. The other significant experience in Sri Lanka is discrimination cogent\nwithin relatives, ethnic groups,  single\nreligious groups,  and within brothers\nand sisters. The lack of education about the possible mental feeling of\ndiscrimination or mental harms of the subject relegated to discrimination may\nbe the major reason for continuing discrimination in Sri Lanka.  I observed the ragging in universities was\nsubject to discrimination, especially Tamil students were ragged by Sinhala\nstudents based on ethnicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka had been suffering from an ethnic-based civil war for a long time and the\nattempts of the military have successfully eliminated the war. Many\npolicymakers in the country did not think about the root cause of the ethnic\nand religious problems.  The main reason for\nthe armed struggle was that the minority ethnic and religious groups in the\ncountry had a reasonable feeling of discrimination being done to them by the\nmajor ethnic and religious groups (Sinhala Buddhists). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nwritings in history made supportive narratives for discriminatory aspects,\nthough it was not a practical behavior of people in society to reflect\noutsiders. Very rarely ethnical based physical conflicts emerge in the country\nand they initiate with a motivation of hidden organized groups with financial\nsupports. There had been evidence for discrimination and the current problem\ncould consider a result of the long-term dilemma. Neither Sinhala nor Tamil,\nnor Muslim people in modern society practice such discrimination may not\nwilling intention to harm anyone and the caste diction of individual ethnic\ngroups are in all three ethnic groups, but caste dictions cannot disengage from\nsociety, I have seen marriage proposals of Sri Lankans living in developed\ncountries searching for partners related to same castes. Thamil and Muslim\npeople although they are not associated with Sinhala caste dictions they are\nnot willing to marry so-called lower caste girls in the Sinhala community. The\nnature of the culture in the Indian sub-continent seems to hate other ethnic\ngroups or personnel abominates in social engagements and it could have been\nobserved since the era before Christ. Therefore, quickly giving a solution to\nthis long-term problem is an arduous task. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By EDWARD THEOPHILUS It has been reported that a draft constitution has felicitously been completed by the constitutional committee, which was appointed by the president. The draft constitution was written by lawyers who were capable of legal drafting and critically looking at legal issues in the document. When drafting a constitution, the legal aspect is […]<\/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-120440","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\/120440","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=120440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}