OUR LG NOMINATION LISTS ARE QUESTIONABLE: CUSTOMARY LEGAL INTERPRETATION VS. GRAMMAR

Sri Lankan laws suffer from poor English grammar, creating ambiguity in interpretation Courts tend to rule based on presumed legislative intent rather than the actual text of laws, raising concerns about democratic processes in Sri Lanka Unlike medical texts that undergo rigorous multiperson proofreading, laws are often drafted by individuals who lack subject expertise, resulting in grammatical ambiguities.

- 

In my final year of the Power Systems Course, I had a close friend who was the best in that subject in class. I learnt from him, but he failed at it and did not graduate with us because it was a core subject.

I heard from seniors and our Head that his English handling and grammar were so bad that local examiners knowing what he knew, gave him full credit for what he wrote, but British re-scrutineers to whom all our final papers went, urged that our examiners make a strict textual reading of what he wrote and not read into explanations of what he wrote. So he was marked down and failed. The choice was ours, but rejecting the advice would have been bad for our accreditation.

In my recent paper, ‘Neglect Of The Tamil Community: Time For NPP To Take Note & Change Course’ I said that many non-citizens are improperly disqualified from contesting Local Government Elections. My friends say I am wrong. One such friend wrote to me and successfully identified a dual citizen, though he says: “But if that right for innocent nomination lists would be crazy-wrong”. Moreover, many qualified candidates would have been dissuaded from contesting. We cannot hold elections on a wrong understanding of the laws.

The dominant view is that one has to be a citizen of Sri Lanka to be an electoral candidate. This arises from a published note from the Election Commission of Sri Lanka, which says non-citizens cannot contest at local authority elections.