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SC
takes up Bill to make Buddhism official religion The Supreme Court issued notice on Ven Medhananda Thera after initial submissions from the Attorney General's Department this week. The Bench comprising Justices Shirani Bandaranayake, T.B.Weerasuriya and Raja Fernando took up the Bill for consideration whether it was inconsistent with the Constitution. The new Bill comes after the Supreme Court ruled in August this year that an earlier Bill titled 'Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion' presented by another JHU MP Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thera was unconstitutional. The new Bill seeks to provide for binding persons practicing Buddhism to bring up their offspring in the same religion, to provide for prohibiting conversion of Buddhists and to provide for the establishing of a council to advise the President on such matters. Meanwhile petitioners Stanley Jayaweera, the All Ceylon Hindu Congress, the Centre for Policy Alternatives and two others claimed that the said Bill was inconsistent with Article 9 of the Constitution in that it seeks to repeal and replace the said Article. Submissions have been filed by the petitioners. They state that if enacted the said amendments would be inconsistent with the basic principals of pluralist, democratic citizenship and would violate the rights of all those in Sri Lanka to adopt, change, practise and propagate their own religious beliefs wherever they may be. Therefore they request the court to make the determination that the said Bill is inconsistent with the Constitution and Sri Lanka's international obligations. They state the mandatory requirements of Article 83 of the Constitution are that a Bill to amend, or repeal and replace an entrenched provision of the Constitution shall only become law if the number of votes cast in favour thereof amounts to no less than two-thirds of the whole number of the Members of Parliament (including those who are not present), is approved by the people at a referendum and a certificate is endorsed thereon by the President in accordance with Article 80. Under Articles 80 and 85, only the President is authorized by the Constitution to submit a Bill to the people for their approval thereon. In order for the President to exercise such power granted under the Constitution, the Bill must be capable of being reduced to a clear question without any prejudice to any one or more of the policies of the Bill as well as its adverse ramifications, particularly in respect of the fundamental rights of citizens, they said. Consonant with the scheme set out in Articles 80, 82, 83 and 95, the petitioners submit that in the view of its wide, vague and imprecise nature and probable consequences of the Bill if enacted, the President may not be able to properly exercise the power set out in Article 85, and consequently Article 80. Therefore, the mandatory requirements of Article 83 cannot be met. They have questioned how when people of two different religions decide to marry what religion could they select. They point out that this Bill if enacted would cause grave irreparable and irremediable harm, injury injustice to the rights and freedom of those professing minority religions including Hinduism and would strike at the very root of the ideals of equality, tolerance secularism and co-existence upon which the basic structure of our Constitution rests. The hearing of the petition has been fixed for tomorrow. |
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