Public Representation Committee Report On Constitutional Reform

By S. I. Keethaponcalan –August 20, 2016

Dr S.I. Keethaponcalan

Finally, I found the time to sit down and take a look at the Report on Public Representations on Constitutional Reform, which was released in May 2016. I was keen to carefully read the report because the appointment of the committee to gather public opinion on constitutional reform and the work of the Committee were significant political developments. They marked significant steps forward in the otherwise extremely slow process of constitution making initiated by the present government. The Committee comprised of experts from Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities. Within a short period of time, the Committee managed to visit 25 districts and record more than 2500 representations, which is an impressive achievement by any standard. The mandate of the Committee was to gather public opinion and to submit a report to the Constitutional Assembly with “recommendations” to reform the constitution (p. v).

Recommendation?

It is on the recommendation part, I believe, that I am little disappointed. A recommendation, in my opinion, means suggesting a course of action. This course of action may or may not be accepted by the receiver. According to an online dictionary, recommendation means “a suggestion or proposal as to the best course of action, especially one put forward by an authoritative body.” The Merriam-Webster defined recommendation as “the act of saying that … something is good and deserves to be chosen.” I write a reasonably good number of recommendation letters for university admissions and employment. However, I have never written a letter of recommendation to an employer saying that the person may or may not be hired. I always say the person is qualified to be hired or I say that he or she is not qualified to be hired. So, in recommendation, we propose one or the best course of action. The employer already knows that the applicant may or may not be hired.

Therefore, I expected the committee to recommend the “best” course of action based on the public opinion and socio-political realities in the country. I also expected the Constitutional Assembly to work around the best course of action proposed by the Committee. Of, course the Constitutional Assembly has the power to make any and all changes it deems fit. However, what the Committee has done is generating options on important issues. It is only part of the dual strategy adopted by the Committee. On some issues, especially on uncontroversial elements of the constitution, there have been genuine recommendations. For example, on fundamental rights, the Committee recommended a new Bill of Rights with provisions for the right to life, equality, human dignity and so on. There has been no second opinion on these issues. That is a recommendation.

Option Generation

However, on contentious issues, especially elements connected to ethnic conflict or ethnic conflict resolution, the Committee has taken an easy way out by simply listing the options available. In my opinion, this could have been done by a group of research assistants. For example, in regards to the national flag, the Committee says, the present flag could be kept without any changes or a new flag could be designed to accommodate minority sentiments. On religion, six suggestions have been made ranging from retaining the existing chapter, which confers special protection to Buddhism to becoming a secular state and providing equal protection to all religions. Then, on the unit of devolution, the Committee provided six suggestions or what it called “alternative formulas.” The Committee does not say which one is most suitable or should be adopted.

How many of us do not know that when enacting a new constitution, we could keep the present flag or change it? Many members of the Constitutional Assembly don’t need an expert-panel to say that there are two options on this factor; keeping or changing. The point is that most of the options listed or alternatives presented already exist within the devolution debate in Sri Lanka. Many of the options have been already presented by various researchers. My critic is that the Committee missed a real opportunity to pinpoint something as the best option and also justify it. This is probably one reason why the report failed to ignite a serious debate about constitutional reform and even the report. A debate will explode if (and when) the Constitutional Assembly settles on a plan.

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