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by Dr. Laksiri Fernando- University of Colombo

The status of human rights in any country will largely depend on four main conditions or factors. First is the constitutional and legal provisions supported by necessary institutional structures to implement them. Second is the people's determination and capacity to articulate their rights and to assert them through civil society organizations. Third is the international environment backed by the multinational organizations that may or may not influence the said country's human rights situation positively. Fourth, and the most important factor is undoubtedly the nature of the political regime, which may or may not favour human rights in the country for various reasons.

The fourth factor is so important that it could even obliterate other three factors including the international factor which at present is by and large conducive to the promotion of human rights in many countries particularly after the end of the Cold War. However, there can be regimes such as in Burma that would resist and ignore any positive international influence. There is this story about JR Jayewardene who even wanted to resign from the UN as an angry reaction to international criticism after the 1983 events!

On the other hand, international influence or pressure on human rights should not be taken as always positive and unbiased. Things have improved definitely after the end of the Cold War, because, by and large, the West does not have a particular enemy except countries like Iraq or Islamic Fundamentalist states, and the world is not divided on those lines. However, while it is not completely correct to bunch all the Western countries together, there is still the general Western bias towards Capitalism, managerialism and the urban beogioisie. Therefore the argument that whatever the regime, human rights can be saved under international influence or conditions is not valid.

Sri Lanka has achieved considerable progress in constitutional and legal provisions for human rights during the last three decades or so. The 1972 Constitution was the first to embark on a Fundamental Rights Chapter. The 1978 Constitution enlarged upon human rights provisions in it although the practice of those largely stalled before 1994 because of the political nature of the regime itself that brought these provisions into being.

Another weakness of these provisions still prevalent is the Limited possibility of the public to seek redress only against the actions by the public sector and executive authorities. The private sector authorities do not come under the purview of the constitutional provisions at all It was to ameliorate the above weakness at least partly and to address certain other issues that the National Human Rights Commission was established in 1997. The PA Government also intended to enlarge the provisions of fundamental rights in the Constitution commensurate with the contemporary international developments in its constitutional reform proposals in August 2000. Although the UNP did not oppose the fundamental rights as such, the constitutional proposals were rejected on other grounds and everything was thrown into the dustbin. Public interest litigation was one of the most progressive proposals that became buried as a result.

There has always been a considerable difference between the UNP and the forces represented by the PA (the SLFP and the Left) in respect of peoples' rights and their right to articulate and assert them. The political regime matters a lot in respect of the implementation and practice of human rights in any country. This is not to say that the PA is completely free from any regressive tendency in the past or even at present. But the theory of relativity is a definitive guide in judging and weighing matters even in politics. The relative difference between the UNP and the PA in respect of human rights practice is not an accidental or insignificant one.

All the political regime installed defeating the UNP led by the SLFP, particularly in 1956, 1970 and 1994, managed to achieve considerable progress in enlarging the space for human rights in this country although there had always been contradictions and natural ebbs at the end of these periods. On the other hand, the UNP regimes installed were always highly repressive regimes not only curtailing but at times grossly violating human rights of various sectors of the people. The Jayewardene-Premadasa regime composed of some of the present UNP leaders as key ones from 1977

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