http://www.llrc.lk/images/stories/Justice__C_G_Weeramantry_-_29.11.2010.pdf Representations made by Justice C. G.

Weeramantry, 29 November, 2010 I shall confine myself to speak on the institutional, administrative and legislative measures needed to prevent a recurrence of a conflict and to promote national unity and reconciliation among all communities. Two areas urgently needing attention areinstitutional and administrative measures relating to peace education and legislativemeasure essential for building confidence and trust. A.Peace Education: ... B.Trust and Confidence Building: To achieve this, there are a number of factors which we must give our attention, because every citizen must have full confidence and trust that they have a right to be absolutely protected by the legal system of the country and by the Constitution. There, we have a long way to go. To achieve this, there are some essential prerequisites: 1. A Constitution which shields all citizens from abuse of power and authority and guarantees them against any denial or erosion of their rights; 2. Freedom of information and complete transparency of government. I have selected these two though there are many more to that list .................... World Conference of Legal Philosophy was organized in 1976 by the World's Society of Legal Philosophy to mark the American Bicentennial. They had 03 presentations on Equality and Freedom from the juries from the 03 worlds at that time; i.e. the Western World, the Communist World and the Third World. Iwas asked to make the presentation for the Third World. I studied the constitution of many third world countries to see what went wrong in their countries. What emerged was that in many of these countries their constitutional structures were such as to permit the growth of authoritarianism with a resulting denigration of basic rights and liberties. .... In 1978, President Jayewardene sought to introduce the Presidential system. In the light of the work I had done, I realized that there could be some dangers in this system and the proposed constitutional structure opened out possibilities for authoritarian rule through a violation of the principle of separation of powers and a departure from the basic tenets which had thus far protected the liberty of the subject in Sri Lanka. ... I was not successful in convincing him that he should desist from this course. When it happened in 1984, the problems in Sri Lanka became very grievance and at that stage, I was the President of the 'Overseas Sri Lankan Organisation for National Unity'. I wrote several papers on the need for a new Human Rights Dispensation for Sri Lanka, because I saw that the clear route to the solution of our problems was absolutely an integrated system of guarantee of human rights to all. I saw this as the way to the solution of the communal conflict. I wrote papers on it. One of them was "A New Human Rights Dispensation for Sri Lanka One of the Paths to the Solution of Communal Conflict". These were widely publicized in various countries and it was emphasized that if the minorities were to have complete trust and confidence, every citizen needed to be fully protected by legislation guaranteeing the strict enforcement of human rights.