Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

28 October  2017

Dual Citizen’s Mind in Constitution Making?

Our Australian High Court ruled yesterday that five of our Politicians were ineligible to be elected to Parliament on the basis of Section 44(i) of our Constitution which provides as follows:

44. Any person who -

(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: 

shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

This is the citizen’s parallel of Equal Opportunity Law which requires zero advantage at the common starting point. The fundamental theory is based on not having two masters of different mind structures. Laws that are genuine and valid, help us merge our minds into One. At cultural level, this becomes difficult as we widen our horizons and hence separations are needed.

Professor George Williams, Dean of Law at the University of NSW, said in August during his National Press Club address: ‘Recent media coverage of the Constitution must come as a surprise to Australians. After all, many apparently do not know that the document exists, with a poll taken some years ago for the Constitutional Commission finding 47 per cent of the community unaware that we have a written Constitution.’

The disturbance to the Political structure led to active learning about the Constitution with particular emphasis on Section 44 ruling. This includes the Tamil Community in Australia. Now emotions have been elevated to knowledge level on the basis of the Constitution.

The Sri Lankan Government rejected foreign judges inquiring into allegations of war-crimes during the war against the Tamil Tigers in which majority victims were Tamils. That rejection would be marked ‘right’ by the principles underlying Section 44 (1) of the Australian Constitution. But it raises also the question of authority for a Government that carries ‘Buddhism foremost’ in its Constitution and states that ‘it is  the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana’ , to judge Non-Buddhists – including the Tamil Tigers who were labelled by Buddhists as ‘Terrorists’. A Buddhist mind is a ‘foreigner’ to a Hindu mind, a Christian mind or a Muslim mind.

One who votes on the basis of belief is a Natural owner. One who uses the vote for personal pleasures is a whore. As per Daily Mirror Report ‘NFF reiterates bombing of parliament’:

[The National Freedom Front (NFF) today reiterated that Parliament should be bombed if it approves the Constitution by a two-thirds majority leading to the division of the country and claimed there would be no need of a parliament if all the powers were transferred to the provincial councils.]

 The same medium publishes the following by Dr Asanga Welikala:

[President and Prime Minister must now urgently focus on a negotiated solution to the differences within the governing coalition 

An uninformed public, especially within the majority community, can easily be misled by distortion and lies, or frightened into joining the opposition

Nothing except the constraints of a good and strong political culture can prevent a paper constitution from being violated  ]

Dr Asanga Welikala is presented as follows to the readers: ‘ a Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Edinburgh and the Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law. He is also a Research Associate of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Alternative (CPA), Sri Lanka.

A lecturer in Public Law and the Director of foreign institute for Constitutional Law, does not have the authority to advise Sri Lankan Politicians or the Common Lankan Public on Public Law or Constitutional Law. To the extent he is, he is causing disturbance to the minds of his readers & listeners, including the press. A Sri Lankan has the fundamental right to be measured by fellow Sri Lankan minds – meaning in terms of law – the mind that is structured as per Sri Lankan interpretation of a law – be it religious, cultural or secular. One who is not conscious of ‘foreign’ titles – is entitled to share as an Equal. Dr Asanga Welikala would  need to dumb down to merge his mind with the Lankan political chiefs to travel with them and not lead them if the goal is to merge with global minds. The way Dr Asanga Welikala’s mind  has been presented, I conclude that he is taking  us back to Colonial times – to submit to the British mind.

Humility is needed by a British to assist Sri Lankans in Policy and v.v. If Dr Asanga Welikala is Buddhist – he would renounce the higher status to become humble and accessible to the ordinary Sri Lankan or limit his work to the law institutions and leave the political advocatory roles to British Politicians.

To my mind, Section 44 (i) of the Australian Constitution  is the mother of Racial Discrimination Act 1985. The way the Judiciary interpreted the law was different to the way Politicians interpreted that law.  The latter was outcome based. By taking the side of  Politicians Professor George Williams confirmed that his was a ‘foreign’ mind to the Judiciary and more importantly that he failed to pay his dues to his Academic Ancestors whose mind ought to be filled with philosophy and not temporary matter.