BUDGET OR NO BUDGET? IT IS A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
There has been speculation this week that the government is planning to present a Vote on Account rather than a full and proper budget. The DNA/JVP has already announced its opposition to…
Author: Asanga Welikala
TWO CONCEPTS OF THE CONSTITUTION: AN ESSAY IN MEMORY OF CHANAKA AMARATUNGA
19th April marks the 52nd birthday of the late Chanaka Amaratunga, the former leader of Sri Lanka’s Liberal Party, quondam Vice President of Liberal International, one of our foremost public intellectuals, and…
The Shocking Behaviour of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka
With frustrated resignation, Sri Lankans are used to how government departments (the Police in particular) and public property are misused and abused by the party in power during elections for partisan advantage.…
DAYAN JAYATILLEKA’S CRITIQUE OF TAMIL NATIONALISM: A COMMENT
[Editors note: This article responds to Dayan Jayatilleka’s article.] I have read with considerable interest Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke’s recent critiques of the post-war strategic and normative dynamics of Tamil nationalism in terms…
REFLECTIONS ON LIBERTY IN SRI LANKA AT A GROUNDVIEWS MILESTONE
in 1859. As Chou En Lai said of the French Revolution, in an era of crisis for global capitalism, many may feel that it might be too early to tell whether or…
NORMALISING THE EXCEPTION: THE STATE OF EMERGENCY IN PEACETIME
In response to a call by the Opposition and civil society to lift the state of emergency and to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in consequence of the end of…
Responding to criticism on human rights: A case of ante-natal stress disorder?
My critique of the Ministry of Human Right’s report on its preparations on a future National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP) has drawn the kind of contumacious response from one ‘Trigger Happy’…
The farcical ‘National Action Plan for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights’ in Sri Lanka
Exactly a year ago today, a week before the Royal-Thomian, the journalist J.S. Tissainayagam went into the TID to enquire after his friends who had been taken in for questioning the previous…
THE EASTERN PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS: A BRIEF POST-MORTEM
As the much hard-sold elections to the Eastern Provincial Council came to an unseemly and acrimonious conclusion last week, it was already becoming abundantly clear that its political and constitutional ramifications may…
POWER-SHARING: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The constitutional reform debate in Sri Lanka is in a particularly enervated state as we approach the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, with a government in power that displays that bizarre concoction…
ETHNOS OR DEMOS? – QUESTIONING TAMIL NATIONALISM
As the major military onslaught against the LTTE gathers pace to the accompaniment of increasingly jingoistic rhetoric of ruling party politicians, bureaucrats and military top brass, Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka finds…
SRI LANKA: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
The year 2007 in Sri Lanka began with little hope for a revival of the peace process, and therefore also for constitutional reform, and it ends with similar prospects on either of…
ON LIBERTY
When John Stuart Mill wrote his seminal essay of the same title as this column, he set out, elegantly and persuasively, the foundation for much of the political liberalism of the next…
FEDERALISM AND THE UNP
Much has been said and written about the UNP’s supposed abandonment of federalism during the past week. Much of it completely misses the point. Whatever are the politics and motivations behind the…
BEYOND FEDERALISM?: LIBERALISM’S CHALLENGES IN SRI LANKA
This columnist has been associated for the past several years with that much-maligned minority that can be broadly labelled ‘liberal federalists’ on the question of peace and constitutional reform in Sri Lanka.…