Though the National Human Rights Action Plan is now available in all three languages on the web (at http://hractionplan.gov.lk/), we still have a long way to go in getting information across about progress. The reports that have been received have not been uploaded, which is essential if ownership of the plan is to be extended to the public – which ...
Grim though the subject can sometimes be, one of the pleasures of convening the Task Force on expediting implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan has been the excellent cooperation evinced by so many institutions. These include governmental and non-governmental institutions, though involving the latter has had to be through the consultations initiated at the Reconciliation Office at the ...
Text of a presentation at the Seminar on Changing Social Dynamics in South Asia: Prospects and Challenges for India and Sri Lanka, conducted by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies and the observatory research Foundation. August 17th 2012 I am grateful to the Bandaranaike Centre and the Observatory Foundation for this opportunity to speak on governance. I was not sure ...
Some of the issues I have raised in recent columns in this series came up in a different form in a presentation made by Indrajith Coomaraswamy during one of the discussions the Liberal Party has been conducting on Reform. Though initially we had thought of concentrating on Constitutional Reform, it soon became clear that that alone was not enough, and ...
A couple of months back, I wrote in this series about the laws’ delays, but I was talking then of a very different sort of delay. I was referring to delays in the application of laws, the manner in which dates are given ad infinitum (endlessly) for cases, how cases are adjourned sine die (without a date, so that those who ...
C A Chandraprema’s book on the war against the LTTE is an immensely interesting read. I had wondered how effective he would be as a writer of a sustained narrative, for his columns, though informative, can sometimes be turgid and repetitive. But his book combines a racy narrative with convincing detail, and I think makes clear the immense achievement of ...
The last section I had planned to look at in this series is the Judiciary, though that may be the most important in the current context. The basic suggestions I put forward some weeks back, before the crisis had got so grave, basically addressed problems that were developing precisely because we were confused about two principles that all constitutional dispensations ...
The relationship between the two themes I have been looking at in this series came home to me vividly when I read an article by my old friend Tissa Jayatilaka about the current situation. He too was once a leading member of the Liberal Party, though he left the Party even earlier than Dr Saravanamuttu, when he thought the party ...
Presentation prepared by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at the Oslo Debate on Whether or not to engage with extremists Held on June 18th at the Oslo Forum 2014 (Delivered after the presentation of M A Sumanthiran, MP) When I was first invited to participate in this debate, I was told it was about talking to terrorists. I thought then that I ...
It is widely agreed that the Executive Presidency has too much power, and those now supporting the common candidate are pledged to reduce this. However, in doing so, they should work on basic political principles, and particularly the doctrine known as the Separation of Powers. This involves building up the powers of other institutions of State, so that the Executive ...
With regard to the collapse of relations with India in the eighties, the reasons are clear enough. If anyone doubted the corrosive effect of President Jayewardene’s Cold War adventurism, the Annexe to the Indo-Lankan Accord makes crystal clear what India feared. At the time the Liberal Party regretted the fact that we should have acknowledged Indian supremacy over our foreign ...
Amidst a number of meetings of Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation Committees in the North last week, I also had a number of interactions with children, and with persons working with children. Two instances were serendipitous, but I was privileged to participate actively – and indeed exhaustingly – on one occasion. This was when I conducted, in a small school near Nedunkerni, ...
Last week saw an extremely productive consultation on promoting the Rights of Children. Organized by the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, as decided at the meetings we have been holding over the last several months to better understand the problems and possible interventions, it was presided over by the Secretary to the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs. In addition ...
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, national list MP from the ruling party speaks to Ranga Jayasuriya of LAKBIMAnEWS about why he refused to sign the resolution that called for the impeachment of the chief justice and how he feels about the erosion of democracy in the country under the very regime he is serving in. 1. You are one of the government ...
In addition to discussion of the role of oversight committees of Parliament in reducing corruption, two other important issues were raised at the Transparency International consultation with Parliamentarians, where structural reforms are required if corruption is to be reduced. One is an area in which the system we have increases the temptation, or perhaps even the need, to be corrupt. ...
Enemies of the President’s Promse: Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Seven Dwarfs – Happy (Part 1) Basil I think honestly believed that rapid development of the North would make everyone happy. This did not mean it was not sincere about reconciliation. Basil I think honestly believed that rapid development of the North would make everyone happy. Certainly he seems to have been ...
Having gone through another spate of attacks on Sri Lanka and its government, I thought it would be helpful to set down systematically the charges that are made, and to suggest how we can best deal with them. In the draft National Reconciliation Policy which was prepared in my office, we referred to three areas where action is needed. The ...
Over the last 25 years the idea of Cabinet government has become a joke. I suspect this was the intention of J R Jayewardene when he imposed an Executive Presidency on a Westminster style system of Cabinet government. In no other country in the world in which the Constitution is a serious document is there an Executive President who has ...
As I have noted before, the thoughtful new Secretary to the Ministry of Resettlement remarked, at a seminar at the Officer Career Development Centre in Buttala, that Nation Building needed much more attention, to complement the State Building that is proceeding relatively well. His Ministry, along with the Bureau of the Commissioner General for Rehabilitation and the Presidential Task Force ...
Now that the LLRC Action Plan is out, it has drawn the usual reactions. Those who find good things in it claim that these have been forced on government. Others claim that it does not go far enough. Kusal Perera does both. Interestingly we do not yet find criticism that it goes too far, though I suspect this viewpoint too ...
