Sunday Dec 15, 2024
Sunday Dec 15, 2024
Wednesday, 27 September 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The interim report of the steering committee was presented to the Constitutional Assembly on 21 September. One can argue that when drafting the new constitution, there is more emphasis and prominence given to the concept of ‘devolution of power’. There is hardly any focus on ‘sustainable development’ as a goal in drafting the new constitution.
As for the constitution-making process, the President Maithripala Sirisena has told the Constitutional Assembly that people were fearful of the words federal, devolution and ‘unitary,’ etc. A constitution should not be a document that people should fear. Let us therefore, discuss the meanings of key words such as federalism, devolution and unitary in detail to understand whether these concepts are relevant and important in terms of attaining economic development and maintaining ethnic and religious harmony whilst preserving territorial integrity and sovereignty of the people.
By definition, federalism is a mode of political organisation that unites separate states within a political system in such a way as to allow each to maintain its own fundamental political integrity. Federal systems do this by requiring that basic policies implemented through negotiation, so that all the members can share in decision making. Therefore, the concept of federalism is not relevant and doesn’t apply to a small country like Sri Lanka.
Devolution on the other hand means the transfer of power from a central government to regional or local authorities. Devolution usually occurs through conventional statutes rather than through a change in a country’s constitution. Thus, some unitary systems of government that have devolved powers in this manner are still considered unitary rather than federal systems, because the powers of the regional authorities can be withdrawn by the central government at any time.
However, Sri Lanka has devolved power through the constitutional process by bringing the 13th Amendment in 1986. The said constitutional amendment and the consequent provincial council system were enforced by the Indian Government as a solution to the problems faced by the country, in particular the people in the north and east due to increased terrorist activities committed by LTTE. It was expected that LTTE would enter the main stream of politics by joining the provincial councils, but it never happened. The circumstances are somewhat different today.
With regard to the well- established concept of ‘unitary state’, the interim report has deliberated in the following manner. (Refer page 1 of the interim report)
Sentence 1: The classical definition of the English term “unitary state” has undergone change.
Sentence 2: In the United Kingdom, it is now possible for Northern Ireland and Scotland to move away from the union.
Sentence 3: Therefore, the English term “Unitary State” will not be appropriate for Sri Lanka.
Sentence 4: The Sinhala term “aekiya raajyaya” best describes an undivided and indivisible country. The Tamil language equivalent of this is ‘orumiththa nadu’.
I fail to understand any logical sequence of the above sentences (the entire para) in the interim report, in particular the third sentence: “Therefore, the English term “Unitary State” will not be appropriate for Sri Lanka.”
Prof. Chandre Dharma-wardana from Canada has apparently done a search and told the writer: “If you look at the Madras University Tamil Lexicon, or the Cologne University Tamil English dictionary, you find that there are no entries for ‘unitary’. Mr. Aruna Laksiri, a human rights lawyer has questioned as to why the constitutional experts of the Government have changed the Tamil word for ‘unitary’ from ‘octrayanchichi’ to ‘orumiththa nadu’.”
The lynchpin of the unitary state is the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty elaborated by ‘Blackstone’; “Unitarianism, in short, means the concentration of the strength of the State in the hands of one visible sovereign power, be that Parliament or Czar”. In the 1998 (hence post-devolution) edition of Coxall and Robins’ Contemporary British Politics, it says, “although the national sub-divisions of the British Isles lend themselves in theory to a federal constitution, the United Kingdom has become—and remains—a unitary state.” The word ‘remains’ is stated here, because the authors are writing after the passing of the body of devolution legislation.
As can be seen from the above, it is clear that the UK as ‘unitary state’ is still defined essentially in opposition to the federal state. Therefore, in my view, the word ‘unitary’ must remain in the English version of the new constitution without replacing it and inserting the word “aekiya”. Due to these manipulations, the majority of the people have already noted the collapse in public confidence in the constitution making process.
The proponents of the devolution school tend to claim that the ‘economic growth’ is always associated with the
devolution and/or decentralisation of authority and resources. The capacity of such devolved administrations with greater autonomous powers to implement policies is supposed to deliver greater economic efficiency. There is however little empirical evidence to substantiate these claims.
According to London School of Economics study undertaken in 2003, contrary to the expectations of devolutionists, the degree of devolution is in most cases irrelevant for economic growth and, when it matters – as in the cases of Mexico and the US – it is linked to lower rather than greater economic efficiency. (Reference: Thesis by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Adala Bwire Published: August 2003 ISBN: 0 7530 1661) In their paper, they assessed the horizontal link between devolution and regional economic growth in six national contexts (Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and the US).
Prof. Chandre Dharma-wardana in his recent article published in local newspapers argued that a devolved system makes matters more expensive and more inefficient. And that is why countries make Unions, e.g., European Union, NFTA, etc. “Today, Sri Lanka is a global village linked with Internet, Facebook and Twitter, served by TV and radio channels, with many coming from outside,” he said.
Sri Lanka has adopted ‘decentralisation of power’ which has resulted in devolving power to PCs and PSs across the country. After nearly 30 years of (mal)functioning of these institutions at regional level, it has now become clear that there are many issues identified such as; misallocation of resources, incurring wasteful expenditure without corresponding economic or social benefits to the people, abuse of power and corrupt practices, etc.
This is partly due to the lack of knowledge and capacity on the part of the local politicians to understand the role and functions of PCs and local government authorities. Most of the members of provincial councils/local government authorities have failed to exercise their legitimate authority in order to maintain law and order and provide service for the benefit of the people. There were many reported cases of policy incongruences at macro level as well as how powers are being misused (especially police and land powers used by the chairmen of the PSs and chief ministers of PCs) at grass root level.
It is relevant to mention here that in terms of the PS Act, chairmen appointed for the PS become the CEOs and Section 43 of the PS Act No. 15 of 1987 says the CEO has the power to cut trees within the Pradeshiya Sabha area. As we are well aware, there is another parallel ‘public administration system’ functioning under the ‘Government Agents’ at district level and the top officials at Divisional Secretariat level.
Unfortunately, the powerful local politicians invariably exert pressure on the honest public servants at these offices. As a result, they find it difficult to carry out duties entrusted to them under the administrative regulations (ARs, FRs) laid down.
In addition, a lack of sufficient fund allocation from the central government to undertake development projects at grass root level would have aggravated the problem. This also leads to duplication of work and provides room for more misunderstanding and misallocation of financial and other valuable resources. The conclusion is that the present unit of devolution, ‘Provincial Councils’ are too large administrative establishments thus negating the very purpose of the principle of devolution with the objective of getting closer to the people.
My own view is that administrative power could be decentralised back to 24 ‘District Councils’ as stipulated in the constitution instead of having larger units of devolution, namely the PCs, some of which have become white elephants and/or corrupt establishments. However, a legal provision could be made to permit any two or more district councils within the same province to amalgamate and operate as a provincial administration. This is to accommodate any request that may come from the districts in the north to manage their own affairs as people living in the entire province is predominantly Tamil speaking population.
Therefore, any proposal to devolve power to District Councils instead of Provincial Councils cannot be construed as a dilution of the powers vested under 13th Amendment.
What is therefore, required now is to devise an efficient legal and administrative system for proper decentralisation of authority to be exercised at “grass root level” and the power is vested in the ordinary citizens of this country to manage their own affairs. This is the spirit of effective devolution as universally accepted. This will enable the Government to undertake all the economic and social development programmes efficiently and effectively thus improving the economic well-being of the people. There seems to be a general consensus on this matter.
Two years ago, the 193 governments of the United Nations adopted the Paris Climate Agreement on the concept of sustainability. The Constitution of the United States in the preamble itself states the six goals which includes social well-being of the American people.
We don’t emphasise enough on social wellbeing or environment sustainability in our constitution. Our country’s greatest challenge is sustainable development, meaning a nation that is economically prosperous, environmentally sustainable and continuously focusing on social wellbeing of people of this country. Therefore, the new constitution must provide a legal and administrative framework with a view to achieving our sustainable development goals.
