Constitution: Call for 'social rights' inclusion

Over forty organizations and more than 70 prominent professionals and academics issued a public statement calling for the substantive inclusion of social and economic rights in the new Constitution currently being drafted. They also call for greater transparency in the drafting process so that citizens may know more about progress and could further participate.

The 'Open Letter', which was released to the Sunday Observer, is addressed to all parliamentarians as members of the Constitutional Assembly, the Steering Committee and to party leaders.

The Letter asks that 'immediate measures' should be taken to "ensure fullest levels transparency in the process, including rendering all submissions, reports and official record of deliberations public and, ensuring that sufficient time is set aside for meaningful public scrutiny and discussion of the draft constitution thus produced".

They urge that the new Constitution of Sri Lanka is underpinned by a "substantive recognition of the obligations of the state to further social and economic justice and rights".

The letter is signed by over 40 organisations country-wide including social movements, trade unions, and organisations working to protect the rights of women, minorities, farmers, fishers, workers, people with disabilities, sexual minorities, and the environment. It has also been endorsed by a wide range of people including academics, lawyers, teachers, social activists, writers, human rights defenders, journalists, and other professionals.

The Letter says:

"The new constitution must unequivocally crystallize Sri Lanka's own post-independence history of public provisioning in areas such as health, education and social welfare. This is central to ensure more effective safeguarding of basic entitlements and rights central to freedom, dignity, well-being and human security. This is also critical in the light of the social, economic and environmental costs of monetary, fiscal and trade policies that are widening inequality and precariousness, sharpening regional imbalances, and weakening social policy; processes that have been aggravated by the war as well as post-war approaches to reconstruction and development."

The Letter stresses that the Constitution "must place obligations on the State to ensure distributive justice through inclusive, equitable, regionally balanced and sustainable development and provide recourse to citizens to claim and enforce their rights in regard to these obligations".

"Moreover, this is also in keeping with Sri Lanka's obligations as a State party to the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights - under which it must take deliberate and concrete steps to meet its obligations - as well as its commitments to goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."

"A Bill of Rights or a Fundamental Rights chapter that only recognises civil and political freedoms not only undermines the indivisible and interdependent nature of rights and entitlements but also seriously imperils the well-being and security of a large section of the country's population.