IDEA held a two-week training seminar from 24 July to 4 August 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand on Constitution Making in Asia in cooperation with the UNDP Regional Centre in Bangkok (RCB) and the International Network on Constitutional Development.
The training seminar is the first of its kind and it developed out of IDEA’s Inter Regional Workshop, “Dialogues on Constitutional Reform”, held in Pretoria, South Africa in December 2005 (also in collaboration with UNDP’s RCB). The Asian participants made it clear that they were at a point dealing with these issues where an intensive course which allowed discussions on constitution making would meet a critical need in each of their countries.
Participants included lawyers, politicians, academics, journalists and civil society groups from the Asia region. The seminar mainly focused on countries undertaking a constitution building or reform process - such as Nepal and Maldives - or those such as Burma and Sri Lanka where constitution building and reform are seen as the best way of addressing the ongoing political and social crisis.
A Sri Lankan participant, Mr Selvin Ireneuss, Director of The Sub - Committee for Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs (SIRHAN), said he valued the opportunity to look at how other countries handle similar problems:
“In Sri Lanka we need constitutional checks and balances to guarantee human rights and the rights of ethnics groups. During the course I found that many of the other participants had similar issues to deal with in their home countries as we do in Sri Lanka and the fact that we were given a chance to discuss and debate these issues with each other was very beneficial.”
The first part of the training seminar focused on the processes of constitution making, including the prospects for combining the process with peace building initiatives, and how to kick start and design a constitution making process. Participants were exposed to how constitutions can provide more than a legal text on which to base structures of governance, what they could contain and how they could be structured differently. The final part of the training seminar focused on different systems of government, autonomy (especially in ethnically divided societies), power sharing, accountability and strengthening democracy.
The training was highly interactive, involving case studies and role-playing techniques which engaged participants with the genuine challenges of creating a constitution. This was highly appreciated as it enabled the participants to appreciate different perspectives and experiences that need to be negotiated and reflected in such a process, and the different institutions and features - such as electoral systems and political parties - that also have an impact. The complex political, social and economic dimensions involved in constitution building and reform processes were also more fully understood.
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Mukthi Pradhan from Nepal and Professor Yash Ghai discussing constitution making.
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Lian Sakhong representing the Burmese ethnic exile group and Selvin Ireneuss from Sri Lanka studying the constitution of the case of "Golden Isles".
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Selvin Ireneuss from Sri Lanka. |
Mario Gomez from Sri Lanka and Mohan Bhanjade from the Peace Secretariat of Nepal working on a case study of "Golden Isles".
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Photos: Leena Rikkilä , IDEA
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