{"id":80246,"date":"2018-08-16T15:36:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T22:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=80246"},"modified":"2018-08-16T15:36:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T22:36:48","slug":"open-letter-to-the-president-pm-and-the-mps-regarding-the-proposed-new-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/08\/16\/open-letter-to-the-president-pm-and-the-mps-regarding-the-proposed-new-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to the President, PM and the MPs regarding the Proposed New Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0From Daya Madawita<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Dear Mr. President, Prime Minister and Members of Parliament,<\/p>\n

Please Amend the Constitution Instead of a New One<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am writing this, as a patriotic Sri Lankan, with the hope that the President of Sri Lanka and the Members of Parliament including the PM will get the chance to read it and think seriously about implementing my proposals given below. If the President and the Prime Minister implement my proposals, the ethnic, religious and other problems of discrimination or perceived discrimination in our country can be solved while ensuring the unitary status of the country and in doing so, become the most respected statesmen of Sri Lanka. It is also a good chance for the Prime Minister and most of the MPs to do something worthwhile for the country for which they will be remembered.<\/p>\n

My proposals along with the reasons why they are necessary are given below:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • All ethnic problems, Tamil, Muslim or any other problems can be solved easily by enshrining a Bill of Rights<\/u> in the constitution which guarantees equal rights to every citizen of Sri Lanka irrespective of race, religion, caste, gender, disability or sexual orientation. <\/strong>Although the present constitution mentions about equal rights, it does not guarantee its implementation.<\/li>\n
  • It is also important to ensure in the constitution that all laws are applicable equally to every citizen, such as, land ownership, marriage and divorce laws etc. irrespective of race or religion. There shouldn’t be different laws for different ethnic or religious groups or for different parts of the country.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  • Bring in anti-discrimination legislation criminalising discrimination based on religion, race, caste or gender etc. Australian anti-discrimination legislation can be an example to be considered. Then the Tamil politicians will have no legs to stand on, but ordinary Tamils, especially the low caste Tamils, will like it.<\/li>\n
  • Appoint an independent and powerful commission to oversee this legislation with offices in provinces with Assistant Commissioners with judicial powers to solve any problems of discrimination.<\/li>\n
  • Get rid of the 13th<\/sup> amendment and abolish the Provincial Council system, which then becomes superfluous. The demands of Tamils for devolution of power to provinces and the colossal waste of<\/strong> money and corruption due to provincial councils can be eliminated.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  • Amend the constitution to change the preferential voting system so that the highest vote getter in each electorate is elected as in the 1972 constitution, which will eliminate in-fighting and minimise corruption. If you are keen to have proportional representation, restrict the number of such MPs to about 20-25%. This is the most important thing to eliminate corruption. Defeated candidates should never be allowed to enter the Parliament through the national list. The national list should be restricted to about 5-10 eminent citizens and not political stooges. This will ensure the election of educated, capable and honest men and women.<\/li>\n
  • Amend the 19th amendment to the constitution restoring some of the powers of the president, such as, his ability to dissolve the parliament and removing the 4 year time limit to dissolve the parliament.<\/li>\n
  • Do not allow the 20th<\/sup> amendment, before the parliament now, to be adopted, which will be disastrous to the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    If these proposals are implemented, there is no need for a new constitution which would need a referendum. You will only need a 2\/3rd<\/sup> majority in the parliament to amend the existing constitution.<\/strong> I am sure that the President and the PM will be able to convince most MPs, except some Tamil Vellala MPs, to vote for these proposals and at the same time take the wind out of the sails of former President Mahinda Rajapakse and his followers.<\/p>\n

    Background to the Ethnic Problems<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Some Tamil politicians have been clamouring for a Tamil homeland amalgamating the Northern and Eastern Provinces and a federal constitution which would effectively divide the country. Their argument for this is that they are discriminated against, even though they have the same rights as the Sinhalese. Any Tamil can aspire to reach any position in government service or in the private sector as present and historical records show. There have been Tamil Commanders of the three Forces, IGPs, Attorney Generals, Chief Justices, Heads of Departments and Governors of the Central Bank etc. Making Sinhala the only official language was a big mistake which was later corrected. I think the main reason for their grouse is that they lost the privileged positions they held before 1960 and their loss of control of the Government and semi-Government institutions due to competition from educated Sinhalese and Muslims. When asked about discrimination, apart from the official language issue, the only thing my Tamil associates could come up with was the standardisation of marks for the University entrance. It applied, not only for students from Jaffna, but for all other students from major cities where the facilities were better than in rural schools. Anyway, they overcame the problem by sitting for the exams the second time around from rural schools.<\/p>\n

    Recently, they have been bringing up the argument of ethnic riots in late 1950s, in the 70s and July 83, to buttress their argument of discrimination. These riots were carried out by uneducated thugs, especially the 1983 riots, mostly by thugs of politicians and aided by the inaction of JR. This was in retaliation to the killing of 13 army personnel by Tamil militants. However, the majority of Sinhalese never condoned these acts of retaliation and did their best to hide and protect their Tamil neighbours. This was the most shameful and regrettable chapter in our recent history. These ethnic riots can\u2019t be considered as discrimination of Tamils by the majority community, but as barbaric, retaliatory acts by a few uneducated thugs, just like the many atrocities committed by the LTTE and other Tamil militants.<\/p>\n

    Since President Premadasa\u2019s time and specially, after the end of the war, the Tamils have been living among the Sinhalese in harmony without any problems.<\/p>\n

    The Muslims have been living in harmony with other ethnic groups until about the late 1980s, after which the Muslims became radicalised which led to recent riots. Hopefully, the proposed amendments will prevent such happenings.<\/p>\n

    Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I have no doubt that our President would love to be remembered as the Statesman who saved the country from foreign influences and unified the country without dividing it on ethnic lines. People, especially the Sinhalese, will hail him as the saviour of our country if he repeals the 13th<\/sup> amendment, which Mahinda Rajapakse could not or did not do. As everyone knows, this is the only country the Sinhalese have and we all want the President, as the Head of the State, to save the unitary status of the country and preserve it for future generations. If he allows a new constitution to devolve power to the provinces or let things to go on as it is now, people will call him, along with Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, traitors of Sri Lanka, manipulated by India and the Tamil diaspora and puppets of the Western countries. I hope and pray that our President has the wisdom and the backbone to implement my proposals. This is also the last chance for Ranil Wickramasinghe to do something to remember him by and worthwhile for the mother land.<\/p>\n

    If the President does not implement my proposals to amend the present constitution and pave the way to bring in a new constitution granting all the powers to the provinces, he will be considered as the greatest traitor we ever had. I hope and pray that President Sirisena will realise the dangers in the proposed new constitution and see to it that it will never be adopted.<\/p>\n

    If this government does not implement my proposals, the former President and his new party, SLPP, should consider these proposals and include them in their manifesto for the next election.<\/p>\n

    May the Gods that protect our country bless our President, PM and the MPs and guide them to do the right thing by implementing my proposals and not pass the 20th amendment or bring in a new constitution to divide the country!<\/p>\n

    Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n

    Daya Madawita<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u00a0From Daya Madawita Dear Mr. President, Prime Minister and Members of Parliament, Please Amend the Constitution Instead of a New One I am writing this, as a patriotic Sri Lankan, with the hope that the President of Sri Lanka and the Members of Parliament including the PM will get the chance to read it and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80246","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=80246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}