Amending the 13 th Amendment: Immorality of Mahinda Rajapaksa Regime Sumanasiri Liyanage President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his closest associates have shown their determination to amend the 13 th Amendment to the Constitution that was enacted in 1987 as a part of an agreement between India and Sri Lanka. Whatever its political implications and repercussions this attempt has proved blatant immoral nature of the present regime. However, there is a glimmer of hope as this immoral determination was questioned and challenged within the governmental front by 8 ministers. The Muslim Congress, the Lanka Samasamaja Party, The Communist Party of Sri Lanka and the Democratic Left Front, those are constituent parties of the governmental coalition have already recorded their opposition to any amendment to dilute the 13 th Amendment. Naturally those who were politically associated with late Vijaya Kumaranathunga have also expressed that they would oppose vehemently such a move. I we...
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Drop in Gold Price: A Plan for Another Round of Quantitative Easing? Sumanasiri Liyanage From The Hindu After April 2012 drop in gold prices, global gold market has registered a sharp drop in prices once again in April 2013, just before the Sinhala Tamil New Year. The spot gold price hit an intraday low of $1,493.35 (£972.40) per troy ounce, putting it 22.3 per cent below September 2011's intraday peak of $1,921.41. Thus g old posted its biggest weekly decline since December, 2011. A bear market is loosely defined as a 20pc fall from its high. Although prices recovered to $1,505.20, the precious metal is still trading 21.7pc below its peak. "The scale of the decline has been absolutely breathtaking. We tried to rally and that just didn't get anywhere ... there hasn't been any downside support, it's like a knife through butter," Societe Generale analyst Robin Bhar said. Parallel to this developments, gold prices became bearish in Mumbai b...
The US Resolution: Does it Signify Cosmopolitanism? Sumanasiri Liyanage I did a small survey speaking to three women belonging to different social status. The first one was a middle-aged woman from Haloya in Kandy. A middle class and middle-aged woman from Colombo (although she was originally from Anuradhapura) who is active in various social movements and a regular participant at Lipton circle protests was the second person. The third one was a young final year student following a special degree course in political science and public policy at the University of Colombo. The second person has been known to me for some time, but not the other two. I told them that the US government has submitted a resolution on (I was careful not to say ‘against’) Sri Lanka to UN Human Rights Council. Then I briefly explained the main idea of it. I tried to be objective as far as I can, but do not claim 100% objectivity on my part, even if such thing exists. In fact, the second and the thir...
Hugo Chavez: A Leader Who Challenged Neo-Liberalism and Washington Sumanasiri Liyanage Although his death did not come as a surprise, it generated a feeling of innumerable loss, a loss not for only for the poor, marginalized and progressive people in Venezuela but also for the toiling masses all over the world. In the heyday of neo-liberalism, he attacked it and went against it. When people were scared of the US and its aggression against people in Iraq and Afghanistan, he singlehandedly challenged Washington. He was not afraid of defeat and when he felt the warning sign, he became offensive and fought back. He was determined that he would not allow the US imperialists to redo Chile in Venezuela in the 21 st Century. In spite of the allegations made by organizations like Human Rights Watch financed by corrupt financiers, he created a new kind of democracy and gave democracy a new meaning. His Bolivarian experiment has generated a glimmer of hope to the poor people in the w...
What is Political Economy? How does it differ from Orthodox Neo-Classical Economics? Sumanasiri Liyanage Is political economy a branch of economics? In other words, should it be treated as categories like international economics, labor economics, gender economics and so on? In answering these issues, in many occasions, ignorance supplants wisdom and knowledge. Having overheard a discussion on the subject by some academics on the occasion of recruiting a person to teach political economy at the University of Peradeniya, I thought, as a person who taught political economy for more than three decades, it would be relevant to make it clear what the term political economy actually means. When I was a student at the University of Peradeniya, almost all my economic teachers were, in a broad sense, political economists. However, it is necessary to mention especially Prof. H A de S Gunasekera and Prof Budhdhadasa Hewawitharana, two great teachers under whom I developed my world view...
The Rule of Law: Is it worth defending? Sumanasiri Liyanage Let me at the outset thank the Transparency International for inviting me for this discussion. I was a bit hesitant to accept the invitation as I thought I would be a misfit here. Because I am not a great fan of ‘rule of law’, ‘good governance’, ‘the independence of judiciary’ and other goodies of the same kind. It does not mean that I do not see a value of these principles and practices of democratic governance. On the contrary, I believe that they are very valuable so that should be defended unconditionally in ‘normal’ situations. However, as Professor Wendy Brown has informed us, ‘democracy has historically unparalleled global popularity today yet has never been more conceptually footloose or substantively hollow’. Hence, it has become for multiple reasons an ‘empty signifier’. The argument that we should ensure that the rule of law prevails also implies that all laws generate justice. Nonetheless, there can be u...
Systemic Crisis: It is not Over Sumanasiri Liyanage There is an unusual and unexpected calmness in Hultsdorf in the post-impeachment days in spite of the fact that all traditions and conventions were put aside in the appointment of the new Chief Justice in place of Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake. At the time of appointment as the CJ, Mr Mohan Pieris was a director of many private companies and the legal advisor to the Cabinet. Previously, of course with rare exceptions, it was either a most senior Supreme Court Judge or the Attorney General who was appointed by the President as the CJ. The present appointment is totally outside the legal system. This is somewhat a hilarious occurrence. Previously, a retired CJ was appointed as an advisor to the President; this time a legal advisor was promoted to the position of CJ. Karl Marx would have added, first time as a tragedy and second time as a farce. The system of making CJ after retirement political was replaced now by pre-CJ political...
Living in a state of exception January 11, 2013, 12:00 pm By Sumanasiri Liyanage Many legal luminaries have expressed their views on the controversial decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Sri Lanka on the Parliament’s right over the impeachment of judges of the Superior Courts, the Supreme Courts and the Court of Appeal. On the basis of the Supreme Court decisions, the court of appeal has given an order to quash the Parliamentary Select Committee report that was given to the Speaker of the Parliament that has led to a constitutional deadlock. The Article 125 (1) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka says: "The Supreme Court shall have sole and exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine any question relating to the interpretation of the Constitution." Hence, the argument is that the Parliament should abide by the decision of the appeal court not to proceed further on the impeachment process. The legal experts have opposite views on the subject. Former Profe...