Constitutional Reforms in Sri Lanka: From Majoritarian Control System to Integration and Accommodation?

Abstract

May 2009, after over 25 years from its beginning, the civil war between the Sinhalese majority represented by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the “sole spokesmen” of the Tamil minority—the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)—has come to an end. Scholars and practitioners generally agree on the fact that the “control system” imposed by the majority on its minorities was responsible for the escalation of the ethnic conflict, the radicalization of Tamils, and the violent outcome. After the war, several trends and policy shifts have become evident. First, the GoSL has become overtly reluctant and resistant toward any exogenous interference or pressure, trying to find home-grown and context-specific innovative solutions in order to finalize the yet to be completed nation- and state-building projects. Second, it has become clear that in order to stabilize and consolidate the political system, politics as usual will not suffice and their continuation may risk, causing the emergence of an LTTE spin-off. Third, both political elites and civil society have adopted a general attitude of “forgive and forget” in terms of coping with the past. Fourth, although the current political trends are contentious by nature, there is consensus between all ethnic groups that policies on public sector employment, language, proportionality and devolution of power are crucial for reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts. In view of profound constitutional reforms that Sri Lanka is undergoing since 2015 (i.e., Nineteenth Amendment or the establishment of a Constitutional Assembly), the paper seeks to explore the role of ethnicity in shaping the constitutional reform process in Sri Lanka and the challenges it poses. In order to analyze the regional variations in institutional engineering and managing diversity, the paper compares Sri Lankan case study to constitutional designs in other plural (deeply divided) societies from South Asia, such as India and Nepal.