Sri Lanka's new constitution: What it must contain - Part 1

SRI Lanka's recently elected President, Anura Kumara Disanayake's political coalition—the National People’s Power (NPP), won an overwhelming amount of support from the majority Sinhalese community as well as the minority Tamil community, receiving a historic supermajority in the November 2024 Parliamentary elections. This broad mandate across ethnic lines presents a historic opportunity to address the constitutional deficiencies that have plagued the nation since independence, particularly the challenges of ethnic conflict and democratic governance. As the country seeks to rebuild after its devastating economic crisis, the lessons from the past attempts at constitutional reform offer crucial insights for crafting meaningful solutions.

- By Pitasanna Shanmugathas

On 3 August 1995, Sri Lanka’s then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga put forward a constitutional reform proposal known as the “Union of Regions” proposal. To date, it remains the boldest attempt to constitutionally redress the grievances of the minority communities of the nation. Unfortunately, due to political rivalry among the two major Sinhala political parties, and the refusal of the Tamil-separatist rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to engage with the proposals, the constitutional initiative was ultimately torpedoed.

This article argues that President Disanayake’s new constitution for Sri Lanka should incorporate many of the features that were present within the proposals put forward by the Kumaratunga government. The 3 August proposals, developed with significant input from Harvard Law educated constitutional scholar Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, offered a comprehensive framework for power-sharing that could address the root causes of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict while maintaining the country’s territorial integrity.

The urgency of constitutional reform has been underscored by Sri Lanka’s recent economic and political crisis. According to a 2024 survey on Democracy and Reconciliation by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), three-quarters of Sri Lankans believe that democracy is preferable to any other forms of government, while a majority (52.3%) preferred a new constitution—a figure that has increased considerably from 2016 to 2024. The public’s demand for constitutional reform was dramatically amplified during the 2022 Aragalaya protests, when citizens demonstrated their willingness to directly challenge and oust President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who had violated a social contract through authoritarian and corrupt governance that led to national bankruptcy.