Sri Lanka and its democratic revolution: the constitutional challenge of unity and diversity

The results of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary election on 17 August can be seen as an endorsement of recent reforms to limit the powers of the executive presidency and strengthen democratic governance. But Asanga Welikala stresses that the political difficulties ahead must not be underestimated, particularly the challenge of finding a constitutional settlement that addresses ethnic and religious pluralism while maintaining the unitary character of the Sri Lankan state

The Rajapaksa Regime and the constitutionalisation of populist authoritarianism in Sri Lanka

Asanga Welikala reviews the constitutional changes introduced by Sri Lanka’s former president Rajapaksa to remove key limitations on presidential power. He argues that Rajapaksa’s surprise defeat this month suggest the basic ideals of democratic government have deeper roots in the Sri Lankan polity than have been visible in the recent past

The Nineteenth Amendment is a historic constitutional milestone in Sri Lanka’s ongoing political development

At the end of April, President Maithripala Sirisena’s 100-day programme of governance reforms culminated with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to reduce the powers of the presidency. Asanga Welikala reviews the progress that has been made since January, and argues that despite difficulties and necessary compromises, the Amendment represents a change for the better in Sri Lanka’s governing arrangements

Popular justice in Sri Lanka: A sociocultural artifact

Conceptualizing law broadly as ideology and practice relating to normative orders, prescriptive frameworks and markers of difference embedded in social, cultural, economic and political processes, this paper examines popular justice in Sri Lanka as a sociocultural artifact that is constructed or molded by the particular context in which it exists. As discussed in the paper, popular justice in contemporary Sri Lanka functions as state-sponsored, informal community-led forums of dispute resolution known formerly as Conciliation Boards and later as Mediation Boards. By analyzing the shifting and changing ideology, rhetoric and practice of popular justice within these forums, as represented in legislative debates and other documents, an attempt is made to theorize popular justice as a social construct that is reflective of the society in which it operates. From the initial establishment of Conciliation Boards as a law reform project to the subsequent re-enactment in the form of Mediation Boards and the many amendments to the law that governs them, the rhetoric and practice of popular justice evolved in tandem with the changing social, economic and political landscape. The assemblage of ideologies and practices surrounding these dispute settlement forums therefore suggests the need to understand popular justice as constitutive of particular social conditions of a sociocultural artifact, which can also be applied to similar laws and law-like processes as well

Spatially Resolved Galaxy Star Formation and its Environmental Dependence

The role of star formation in galaxiesis clearly a fundamental component of their evolution, although itis becoming clear that galaxy environments may also play a significantrole. To explore the relationship between environment and star formationin galaxies, I use the photometric information contained in individualpixels of 44,964 galaxies (volume-limited) fromthe Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Iuse the pixel-z technique, which combines stellar population synthesis modelswith photometric redshift template fitting on the scale of individualpixels in galaxy images. Spectral energy distributions are constructed, sampling a wide range ofproperties such as age, star formation rate (SFR), dust obscuration andmetallicity. By summing the SFRs in the pixels, I show that, as found in other studies, thedistribution of total galaxy SFR shifts to lower values as the local densityof surrounding galaxies increases. The effectis most prominent in the galaxies with the highest SFR. Since the method enables an estimate to be made of the spatial distribution of star formation within galaxies, the mean SFR of each galaxy is then calculated asa function of radius. I find that, on average, the mean SFR is dominatedby star formation in the central regions of galaxies and it is this centralstar formation that is suppressed in high density environments. The mean SFR in the outskirts of galaxies is found to be largely independentof environmental effects. These trends are shared by galaxieswhich are highly star forming.I also investigate the impact of the density-morphology relation of galaxies on the observed trends. Early-type and late-type galaxies exhibit distinct radial SFR distributions.A suppression of star formation in the highest density environments is still found in the highest star forming galaxies within each type. I show that the density-morphology relation alone cannot accountfor this observed suppression. This points to a mechanism by which the environment governs the evolution of galaxies, affecting the star formation in the innermost regions in both early and late-type galaxies. I suggest that this is a natural consequence of "downsizing" in galaxies

Report on citizenship law : Sri Lanka

This report discusses citizenship in Sri Lanka. It explores the history of citizenship in this country, modes of acquisition and loss, and current debates and reform plans regarding citizenship policy.Research for the 2016/2017 GLOBALCIT Reports has been supported by the European University Institute's Global Governance Programme, the EUI Research Council, and the British Academy Research Project CITMODES (co-directed by the EUI and the University of Edinburgh)