Centre for Policy Alternatives on 1 November, 2016

A New Devolution Settlement for Sri Lanka: Proceedings and Outcomes, Conference of Provincial Councils

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is pleased to publish A New Devolution Settlement for Sri Lanka: Proceedings and Outcomes, Conference of Provincial Councils, August 2016 edited by Dr Asanga Welikala. The conference was organised by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), with the participation of delegations from all nine Provincial Councils including Governors and Chief Ministers, as well as local and international experts of comparative devolution and multilevel governance.

The conference deliberations were rich in expertise and experience, and reflected the practical experience of nearly three decades of working the existing framework of devolution under the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In the light of the strengths and weaknesses of that framework and experience, this publication draws attention to the key issues to be considered when designing a scheme of devolution under a new constitution. It is hoped that the Constitutional Assembly will give serious and close consideration to the contents of this document, reflecting the views of the current provincial tier of government as a whole. It is also hoped that this publication would serve to broaden and deepen the public discussion about devolution that is taking place in society in the context of the constitution-making process.

A trilingual edition of this publication with Sinhala and Tamil translations will be available shortly.

Download the publication in full as a PDF in English, Sinhala and Tamil.

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Centre for Policy Alternatives on 17 October, 2016

Topline Report – Opinion Poll on Constitutional Reform

17 October 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka: Only 1.1% of Sri Lankans are extremely aware that a Constitutional reform process is taking place at present while 21.9% are somewhat aware. 34.1% are aware that it is taking place but not at all aware about the details and status, while almost 25% of Sri Lankans said that they did not know that a Constitutional reform process is taking place at present.

According to this survey, almost 70% of Sri Lankans have not heard of the Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reform (PRC) and its activities. Only 0.7% said that they are extremely aware while 8.7% said that they are somewhat aware. 21% have heard of the PRC but were not aware of its activities.

At a Provincial level, Uva (83.6%) and North Western (76.8%) slowest the highest lack of awareness regarding the PRC. Almost 30% from the Western and Sabaragamuwa Provinces stated that they had heard of the PRC but were not aware of its activities. Awareness was highest in the Northern Province where 30% indicated their awareness of the PRC and its activities.

Similar, lack of awareness was very high when it came to the Constitutional Assembly as well. 76.8% of Sri Lankans had not heard of the Constitutional Assembly while 14% had heard of it but were not aware of its activities. Almost 60% of Sri Lankans said that the Government has not been successful in their communication regarding the Constitutional reform process – such as its importance and progress – to the general public. Only 4.8% said that they have been successful and 21.5% said that the Government has been somewhat successful but could be better.

On the question of completely abolishing the Executive Presidential system, a key election promise of the yahapalanaya Government, Sri Lankans are once again divided with 35.7% supporting the complete abolition of the Executive Presidential system and 40.3% not supporting it. 24% said that they do not know whether they support it or not. Article 2 of our current Constitution states that ‘The Republic of Sri Lanka is a Unitary State’ and 63.6% of Sri Lankans believe that it is important to retain the phrase ‘unitary state’ in the new Constitution. This opinion is mainly held by the Sinhalese community (77.7%) while only 14.3% from the Tamil, 18.1% from the Up Country Tamil and 28.8% from the Muslim communities stated the same.

On the question of giving Buddhism a special place in the Constitution, around 77% of Sinhalese strongly agree that Buddhism should be given a special place in the Constitution. In comparison, 73.3% from the Tamil, 89.2% from the Up Country Tamil and 71.4% from the Muslim communities strongly disagree that Buddhism should be given a special place in the Constitution. Conducted in the 25 districts of the country, this survey captured the opinion of 2002 Sri Lankans from the four main ethnic communities. The selection of respondents was random across the country. Fieldwork was conducted from August 29 – September 23, 2016.

Download the full report here.

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Social Indicator (SI) is the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and was established in September 1999, filling a longstanding vacuum for a permanent, professional and independent polling facility in Sri Lanka on social and political issues. Driven by the strong belief that polling is an instrument that empowers democracy, SI has been conducting polls on a large range of socio-economic and political issues since its inception.

Please contact Iromi Perera at [email protected] for further information.

Centre for Policy Alternatives on 5 October, 2016

CPA URGES GOVERNMENT TO DESIST FROM PROCEEDING WITH THE AMENDMENT TO THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE

5th October 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is deeply concerned by a statement made by the Minister of Justice reported in the print media on 2 October 2016 on the Government’s intention to proceed with amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code. CPA has challenged similar arbitrary procedures and administrative directives on detention in the past and has continuously advocated for the rights of detainees, particularly those relating to due process. The present amendment is of concern as it deviates from existing constitutional, legal and administrative safeguards and Sri Lanka’s international obligations. CPA calls on the Government to desist from proceeding with the Bill in its present form.

The Bill proposing the amendment was issued on the 15 of August 2016 as a supplement to the Gazette of 12 August 2016 and has been criticized by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL), the BAR Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and several civil society organisations. CPA welcomes the timely intervention by the HRCSL and BASL. The HRCSL’s letter detailed several serious shortcomings of the proposed Bill, including concerns that -if enacted into law- the proposed amendment could increase the risk of suspects being subject to torture, cruel and inhuman treatment as well as illegal arrest and detention. It was also reported that the BASL wrote to the President expressing similar concerns.

The Government’s continued insistence to move ahead with this Bill is particularly problematic in light of its commitments to prevent the torture of persons detained by the State and the ongoing efforts to secure the GSP (Plus) preferential tariff system from the European Union.

Furthermore, the process by which this Bill was gazetted and the Justice Minister’s statement are indicative of larger problems in the law making process in Sri Lanka. CPA has repeatedly called on successive governments to ensure that there is greater transparency and public participation in the law-making process. At a very minimum this would require consultations with stakeholders prior to drafting legislation and ensure that draft legislation is more accessible to the public. In light of the ongoing constitutional reform process, CPA urges the Government to urgently address these systemic problems in the law making process.

Download the PDF of this statement in English, Tamil and Sinhala.

Centre for Policy Alternatives on 26 September, 2016

Trouble in Paradise: Tourism development and human rights in Sri Lanka

Development for tourism in some parts of Sri Lanka is a speeding train set on a collision course with the basic human rights of some of the island’s most vulnerable communities. The country recorded a 16.7% increase in foreign arrivals from 2015 to 2016 and new properties continuously spring up around the island. However, the hidden cost of this growing industry is completely hidden by streams of photographs of pristine landscapes and smiling locals, quintessentials of the #islandlife.

Travels along the East coast, the Jaffna peninsula and the islands of the North-West uncovered a long list of dark secrets that don’t make their way to Sri Lanka Tourist Board material, travel brochures or the forefront of discussion due to the involvement of the military or political influence in the seizing of lands and deprivation of livelihood to communities that are already struggling to make ends meet.

This feature was created after travels to these areas and conversations with the affected communities. We are aware that this issue is far more widespread than these locations and consider readers to not view this as an exhaustive list but an opener to an important dialogue that needs to take place for equal access to progress.

The message of this feature, released to coincide with World Tourism Day, is not to tell people to refrain from visiting Sri Lanka or from exploring the country but to do so responsibly, with a knowledge of the community struggles that the facades of development hide so that they will be able to contribute to the economy in a way that it benefits those who need it most.

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The feature was created using Atavist and can be viewed in full here.

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Centre for Policy Alternatives on 22 September, 2016

World Class Spaces: Coming Soon

September 21, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka – In this second feature by Abdul Halik Azeez for CPA’s ‘Right To The City Sri Lanka’ initiative, we see the lived experiences and daily struggles of the various people that live in Slave Island (Kompannyaveediya). One of the most culturally rich neighbourhoods in Colombo, it is also one of the most commercially lucrative. In the post war years, the residents of Slave Island have seen their more than century long idyll being disrupted in massive upheavals as state driven projects have sought to wrest away the land from them in a bid to beautify and ‘modernise’ Colombo.

Azeez notes in the feature, “Neighbourhoods like Mews Street have experienced violent, forcible evictions by a militarised Urban Development Authority, while other neighbourhoods like Station Passage have faced a more humane State, albeit temporarily. The acquisition of Java Lane, a densely populated, historic and largely Malay Muslim neighbourhood, is a case in point which illustrates the single minded approach of the gentrification drive, blind to the loss of intangibles such as community, shared culture and human co-dependencies.”

The full feature, created on Adobe Spark, can be viewed here and is embedded below.

‘Right To The City Sri Lanka’ is an initiative by the Centre for Policy Alternatives that aims to broaden the discussion and awareness on key issues concerning development, urbanisation, housing and displacement in Colombo. Combining CPA’s research and advocacy, ongoing documentation, photography and video, the Right To The City Sri Lanka initiative provides alternative narratives to the development discourse in Sri Lanka. Please visit the RTTC website for more details.

WORLD CLASS SPACES

 

Centre for Policy Alternatives on 7 September, 2016

Call for crowdfunding: Strengthen & support CPA’s work in Sri Lanka

7 September 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka: In 2016, CPA turns 20.

What does 20 years give us? Perspective – the experience few others have to see how things evolve, why things matter, and how to shape intended outcomes. Knowledge – we have worked at every level of civil society since, and at times with some governments, accumulating a wealth of knowledge around how governance works.Insight – we are able to spot trends, contextualise events, analyse processes and connect the dots more accurately, across a larger range of policies.

Over 20 years, our institutional output, research and advocacy has appealed to successive generations of civil society. Moreover, the values CPA is founded upon endure, and resonate with post-war Sri Lanka’s spirit of reform and redress. From youth groups to senior politicians, we work across Sri Lanka, in all three languages, engaging multiple levels of government, producing freely accessible, engaging and timely research driven policy advocacy.

But none of these make us unique in Sri Lanka. What does, is what drives us – what we believe in. CPA is engaged in many things and our output ranges from award winning civic media to public interest litigation. Whatever we do, and whoever leads it, we strongly believe that a vibrant democracy is vital to Sri Lanka. It is this belief that drives us to challenge those who undermine democracy, openly or covertly, no matter what the risk. It is not that we are blind to who you are – identity after all does play a major role in the political and social fabric of Sri Lanka. It is more important to us what you can be – your potential, which is the country’s potential. CPA believes in the inalienable right of everyone to dignity and basic human rights, not as some academic pursuit, but as the very driving force of our work and as the overarching objective we have dedicated our lives and our institution to. We do what we do not because it is the fashion of the day, or because there is a convenient call for funding. Our core set of beliefs, captured in our mission statement, is what drives our public interest litigation, our work in the field with forgotten communities and our work to protect the rights of all, even those who vehemently disagree with us.

CPA is a relatively small team of fewer than 50 staff, including those in administration, working across 4 key themes in 3 offices located in Colombo. We do a lot of work, from extensive research and advocacy on legal and constitutional reform, governance, transitional justice and election monitoring; from international award-winning civic media initiatives to grassroots capacity building across Sri Lanka, from social polling to field-based and applied research. CPA, more than any other civil society organisation and even beyond mainstream media in Sri Lanka, designs and leverages cutting-edge online and web tools to strengthen and promote its advocacy. Our public interest litigation encompasses cases on fundamental rights as well as pre-enactment judicial review, and has provided relief to thousands of plaintiffs over language rights, land issues, human rights violations, election malpractices, displacement, the freedom of movement and much more. CPA’s social polling provides unique and vast socio-economic datasets and analysis for the whole of Sri Lanka. Our research and advocacy on constitutional reform, power-sharing arrangements to resolve the ethnic conflict and on human rights protection, has been highly commended nationally and internationally and our work on transitional justice acknowledged as a key resource for research and advocacy in policy design, for international solidarity and public awareness.

Senior staff are regularly quoted in local and international mainstream media for their expertise and insights. Institutional output, in print and online in all three languages, is regularly flagged and used in debates on policy-making. Because of its profile, CPA is often the subject of hate-speech, with key staff regularly and publicly vilified. And yet, particularly in a country where at one time even post-war, peaceful dissent, critical thinking and alternate political perspectives were violently censored and clamped down upon, what CPA does, represents and provides a space for, is absolutely vital to Sri Lanka’s democratic future.  The current public policy agenda from the abolition of the executive presidency to the right to information, electoral reform to transitional justice, meaningful power-sharing and full enjoyment of language rights is one which CPA has championed and taken the lead in designing and defending even in the most inhospitable climate since its inception.  Consequently, after twenty years, CPA is particularly well positioned for constructive and critical engagement with the government for democratic peace and governance in Sri Lanka.

Prominent Sri Lankans who have endorsed CPA’s work include,

  • Chandra Jayaratne, Sri Lankan of the Year in 2001 and Former Chairman, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce who sees CPA as an organisation that ensures “strict benchmarks for assessment of the outcomes, delivery of promises and efficient, effective and professional management of resources optimizing quality and productivity” and,
  • Deshamanya Bradman Weerakoon, who was a founder director of the organization notes, “The work that the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has done over the years in shining a light on the many areas of State action that need to be corrected has thereby received the highest commendation… As a founding father of the institution and a long time Board Director I am intimately aware of its capacity and potential. What it needs most at this critical time in our country’s journey is funding and resources to accomplish its tasks. Of determination and courage to do so it has no shortage.”

See other testimonials here.

Two years ago, we first launched a crowdsourcing appeal to support our work at a time when prospects for democracy were bleak. As we celebrate 20 years, we are re-launching the appeal to provide critical funding to strengthen our output and impact.

Even with a renewed focus on Sri Lanka, especially because we deal with issues and communities no other NGO in Sri Lanka will embrace, the most pressing challenge for CPA today is donor fatigue and disengagement. With Sri Lanka as a middle-income country on paper and competing donor agendas in mediagenic contexts like Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar, Sri Lanka’s enduring need for civil society research and advocacy to be supported is in grave danger of being significantly deprioritised, even forgotten. This is not a temporary glitch. Institutional funding will, for a range of reasons, be increasingly scarce.

In order to expand its donor base, CPA is exploring the possibility of raising endowment funds from well-wishers, both locally and internationally. This crowd-sourced funding approach will help CPA to maintain its independence and support its entire portfolio of research and advocacy.

We have had many requests from those in Sri Lanka on how they can support our work. The perception is that we are only open to contributions in a foreign currency. This is emphatically not true. CPA is open to donations of any value, from individuals and institutions in Sri Lanka and abroad, supportive of our work. As guidance, CPA encourages donations around the following broad denominations,

  • US$ 2,000 (one-off donation)
  • US$ 500 (per annum)
  • US$ 25 (monthly)

Obviously, donations outside of these denominations are also welcome. Our bank details are,

Account Name: Centre For Policy Alternatives
Bank Account No: 006100022-248
Currency of Account: Sri Lankan Rupees
Bank Name: Nations Trust Bank PLC
Bank Address: No. 242, Union Place , Colombo 02 , Sri Lanka
SWIFT code: NTBCLKLX
Bank Code: 7162
Branch Code: 006

Contact CPA’s Executive Director, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu on [email protected] for more information. As a legally registered entity in Sri Lanka, CPA has undertaken, since inception, an independent annual audit which is published on its website.  CPA also publishes its Executive Director’s report every year, flagging institutional output and impact.

The success of this effort to support CPA’s on-going institutional expenses rests entirely on you. Please contribute generously and pass this appeal along to those who want to see CPA continue to champion and help to bring about a Sri Lanka where anyone, anywhere is able to live in dignity, and without fear.

Centre for Policy Alternatives on 2 September, 2016

Constitutionalizing Economic and Social Rights in Sri Lanka

Working Paper No. 7, on Constitutionalising Economic and Social Rights in Sri Lanka by Mario Gomez, Conor Hartnett, and Dinesha Samararatne, offers an extensive overview of both Sri Lankan and global debates and trends on the constitutional recognition of justiciable socioeconomic rights. It deals critically with conventional critiques of constitutionalisation of these rights, and offers a nuanced argument as to why the new constitution should not only enshrine socioeconomic rights but also make them, subject to the doctrines of available resources and progressive realisation, justiciable.

Download the paper from here.

All Working Papers in the series can be downloaded from http://constitutionalreforms.org.

The series is a product of the partnership between CPA and the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law in support of the Sri Lankan constitutional reform process.