8 November 2021 12:00 am Views - 88
By Yohan Perera
The UNP yesterday urged the government to abolish the task force appointed to look into the implementation of one country on law concept and appoint a parliamentary select committee on law Reforms.
" The appointed Presidential Task Force is destabilizing and destroying the national unity. A Select Committee should be appointed to discuss the matter with the assistance of the Ministry of Justice and especially the Attorney General to decide on law reforms," a statement from the party said.
"Appointing a task force to decide on one country one law and remove the topic of law reforms from the purview of the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General without discussing it in the Cabinet is an unconstitutional act by the President, as this is a function of Parliament. Therefore, we call on President to abolish the Presidential Task Force on One Law, One Country, which is detrimental to the unity of the country," the statement added.
"With the emergence of an independent Sri Lanka, His Excellency the Hon. D.S. Senanayake created a Sri Lankan identity. Under this identity, the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and Burghers were provided a way forward with one identity as defined in our national anthem by the words “because of the children of one mother”. This is also mentioned in the Fundamental Rights Chapter of our Constitution. There were separate laws for different sections of the people in this country. The law of our ancient Sinhala kingdom is today known as the Kandyan law. It is more than 700 years old, the Roman-Dutch law is more than 600 years old. The Thesavalama law is a special law which is about 500 years old and is unique only to Jaffna, having not been practiced even in South India. At the same time, the existing law for Muslims has long been accepted.
In addition, an ethnic group called the Mukkuwa in the Eastern Province lived until the latter half of the 19th century, under a separate law. In the 20th century, this group became extinct due to its mixing with the Tamil and Muslim communities. We have accepted the methods and characteristics of different ethnic groups from the past and no one has been harmed by them.The removal of these laws would be tantamount to the removal of the legal framework established for the entire state of Sri Lanka. We can fix the shortcomings in these laws. Primarily, the rights of married women are restricted in the Thesavalama law. We must address that. Under Muslim law, too, the rights of married women are minimized, and a Bill was drafted in 2019 by the Good Governance Government to amend it," the statement further said.