UNP offers support for constitutional amendment

Opposition UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has written to the European Commission saying that the UNP has decided to support a proposal made to the Government by the apparel industry to amend the 1978 Constitution so that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant, be incorporated in the Constitution.

The UNP leader made this offer in a letter he sent to Ms. BenitaFerrero Waldner, Commissioner of External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy of the EC.

The letter said the reason for this recommendation is that in a recent case which came up before the Supreme Court, the Court had ruled that the ICCPR has no legal effect in Sri Lanka since no steps have been taken to give statutory effect to the rights contained therein.

“As you may know, the ICCPR was ratified by the Sri Lankan government in 1980 when the UNP was in power. Thereafter, in 1997, the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant was also ratified. Subsequently the Supreme Court ruled that no domestic legislation is necessary to give effect to the ICCPR,” he said.

Although the Government in November 2007 passed a law in regard to the ICCPR this is inadequate and insufficient since it has omitted many provisions of the Convention and the Protocol, the letter said. It said that if the Government has no objections to such an amendment, the necessary 2/3rds majority in Parliament, which constitutional amendments require, will be obtained.