Constitutional Reform – the Liberal Party returns to roots in promoting discussion and consensus

The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka was founded 26 years ago, on January 19, 1987. It grew out of a think tank called the Council for Liberal Democracy, which had been established by Chanaka Amaratunga in 1981. Though initially Chanaka and the CLD were close to the governing United National Party, they broke with the UNP in 1982, when the referendum to extend the life of Parliament by a further six years was proposed.

The CLD was the first organization to question the Constitution of 1978 from a centrist perspective. Though the then leader of the LSSP, Dr N M Perera, had written a brilliant critique of the Constitution when it was introduced, his perspective was a centralizing socialist one which regretted the Parliamentary control of all branches of government entrenched by the 1972 Constitution.

That was based on the Westminster parliamentary system, but it did away with the checks that system employed, such as a Second Chamber and independent institutions deriving authority from a Head of State who was not beholden to the Head of Government.

Soon after the Liberal Party was founded, the CLD held a series of seminars on Constitutional Reform. Luminaries of all parties, including Mrs Bandaranaike from the SLFP, Gamini Dissanayake and Ronnie de Mel from the UNP, Dr Colvin R de Silva of the LSSP and Neelan Tiruchelvam of the TULF contributed. Civil Society was represented by luminaries such as Prof C R de Silva and Prof G L Peiris.

The moving spirit of the process was Chanaka Amaratunga who had a coherent constitutional vision. This was made use of by both Mrs Bandaranaike and Gamini Dissanayake when they contested the Presidential elections of 1988 and 1994 respectively.

He drafted much of Mrs Bandaranaike’s manifesto and all of Mr Dissanayake’s and, though denigrated at the time by their opponents both in and out of their parties, many of the ideas advanced therein are now acknowledged as the best solutions to national problems. These were based on the discussions on Constitutional Reform, which were published as a book in 1991.

Following the political confusion of the first few years of this decade, a shorter version of the book was produced almost a decade ago. Since then the current Leader of the Party, Rajiva Wijesinha, has published a series of articles on the subject, based also on principles that emerged in recent consultations he held with regard to a National Reconciliation Policy, and on the needs expressed in 70 District and Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation meetings that he attended in the North and East last year.

Following on these, the Liberal Party will be hosting a series of discussions on Ideas for Constitutional Reform, given the general consensus that this is urgent, and the announcement by the Speaker that this should be a priority. The first will take place at 6 pm on Wednesday January 23rd at the Auditorium of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, 120/10 Vidya Mawata, Colombo 7, and will look at the Separation of Powers.

Following the opening presentation by the party, there will be contributions by Senior Minister D E W Gunasekara, Eran Wickramaratne, MA Sumanthiran and Dr Sarath Amunugama if he is in the country.

Academic perspectives have also been invited from Dr Dayan Jayatilleka and Prof Ranjith Bandara. All are welcome to this event, which it is hoped will be a precursor to serious discussions designed to promote consensus on reforms.