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| Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
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Constitution, source of conflict - DEW Speech made by Constitutional Affairs and National Integration Minister DEW Gunasekera addressing Ministry Secretaries and Senior Officials at the seminar at held on Friday, 26 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo, on the "Constitutional Provisions Relating to the Public Service". The Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, considered it necessary and important to enter into a dialogue with the Ministry Secretaries and other Senior Officials on certain issues relating to the compliance with the provisions of the Constitution by the Public Service. Firstly, as you are well aware, certain provisions of the Constitution relating to the implementation of Tamil as official language have been totally ignored even though 18 years have elapsed since the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. I am sure that you are conscious of the fact that in terms of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution the President has declared certain administrative areas as Bilingual areas for the purpose of implementing the official language policy. Accordingly, Twenty Nine A.G.A. divisions have been so declared but adequate steps have not yet been taken by the relevant authorities to implement those provisions despite so many directives, circulars etc, Permit me to say, this is a gross violation of the Constitution. The aggrieved people continue to suffer for the mere reason of their ethnic origin or language. How long is it possible to allow this situation to continue? Regardless of the question as to who should be held responsible, the fact remains that the rights conferred on the people are being denied. Secondly, the Supreme Court has been inundated with fundamental rights (FR) cases relating to the Public Service ever since the promulgation of the 1978 Constitution. The principle of equality applies from the stage of one's recruitment to the state sector right up to the end of one's career. However, issues pertaining to appointments, promotions, transfers, extension, dismissals, disciplinary control of public officers only indicate the extent of the violation of the principle. Despite many decisions of the Supreme Court involving punishments the public service continue to be plagued by violation of fundamental rights. It is equally true that demoralizing effects on the Public Service have also been caused by such punishments. The lack of awareness for Supreme Court decisions on the part of public administrators can be observed from the certain surveys recently conducted. This has rendered the judgments ineffective. Repetitive violation of fundamental rights can be avoided or minimised if adequate consideration is given to the awareness programmes, with special reference to the knowledge of case laws. Thus, the urgent need for awareness to enhance the impact of fundamental rights cases in the public service. Thirdly, I am personally aware of the magnitude of the violation for constitutional provisions, judging from the large number of petitions referred to the Parliament. As chairman of the Public Petitions committee of the Parliament, I am required to deal with over three thousand of public petitions presented to the Speaker by the Members of Parliament. 98% of those petitions relate to appointments, transfers, dismissals, and matters of disciplinary control presented by Public Servants. The Public Petition Committee has its own limitations. Even the Public Servants have now resorted to seek redress from the Legislature by-passing the Executive and the Judiciary. This is an additional burden on the Parliament. If public servants themselves have begun to lose confidence in their Heads of Departments and Ministries and repose confidence on the Legislature for redress, the situation only reflects a crisis in the Public Service. A lot of bias, prejudice, discrimination, is clearly evident from most of these petitions. Fourthly, issues that surface in the Public Accounts Committee and Committee on Public Enterprises of the Parliament too demonstrate adequately non-compliance of rules, regulation, procedures, directives, and laws by the Public Service. All these matters should receive the attention of those involved in the Administrative Reforms. I do not for a moment underestimate the extent of the contribution made by the prevailing political culture towards this deterioration of the Public Service. With my knowledge and experience in the Public Service including Corporations and Commissions, and also as a man in politics for a considerable length of time, I am inclined to believe that the public is losing confidence slowly but steadily in all the three organs of the State Legislature, Executive and Judiciary for varied reasons and factors. This is why our Ministry has sought to make a dent into this problem through a Seminar of this nature at the highest level of Administrators, even though the issues involve go well beyond the scope of the Administrators. Last but not least, Constitution has become a source of tension,
conflicts confrontations and a cause for the present predicament. |
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