The Government has no need to frame a new Constitution by going against the people. It will present a new Constitution that would enhance the country's security, national unity and religious accord, said Justice and Buddhasasana Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe.
He was addressing a meeting after laying the foundation stone for the Gampola new Courts Complex costing Rs. 458 million recently.
He said that certain newspapers carried banner headlines alleging that Buddhism would lose its rightful place and the country's unitary status would be jeopardised under the proposed new Constitution. But in fact, the Government had not even made a formal draft of the proposed Constitution.
The Government would formulate a new constitution with an open mind, giving due consideration to public views and suggestions. As such, the new constitution would be a people's constitution which would be acceptable to all the people.
Minister Rajapakshe said his Ministry had taken several steps to overcome the problem concerning the laws delays. This was not a problem confronting only Sri Lanka, but common to many other countries such as the USA, India and UK.
Facilities given to Courts countrywide during the last two years was unprecedented during the previous 20 year period. There were 31,000 files held up in the Attorney General's Department for the last 20 years and 6,000 of them had now been cleared, while the balance was being attended to improve the facilities, have now been provided to the Attorney General's Department. Earlier not a single legal enactment had been translated in to Tamil.
Now five very important legal enactments have been translated into Tamil. Steps had been taken to translate several other legal enactments into Tamil, Minister Rajapakshe said. He said steps had been taken to amend the Mediation Boards Act. The Financial limit of cases to be head by the Mediation Boards have been increased from Rs 250,000 to Rs. 500,000. Mediation Boards receive nearly 200,000 complaints annually, while almost half of it is being settled. This was a good trend.
He said the BASL had been requested to educate lawyers concerning the amendments made to the Civil Procedure Code. Former Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne, Deputy Ministers Dushmanthe Mithrapala and Anuradha Jayaratne were also present on the occasion.