States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

the exception discussed below. Nonetheless, a theoretically and
normatively coherent, critical understanding of the Sri Lankan
situation in the light of comparative experience cannot be
undertaken without making this assumption.
At the level of the constitutional and legal framework, the
regulation of states of emergency in Sri Lanka appears broadly to
comply with at least some of the requirements mentioned above,
even if that framework is outmoded in the light of contemporary
international human rights jurisprudence and constitutional
design trends. This is especially the case with regard to the
permissibility and constitutional regulation of restrictions on
fundamental rights during emergencies.
However, in the Sri Lankan experience, what is immediately clear
is that the presumption of exceptionalism with regard to
emergencies cannot form the exclusive basis of an account of
states of emergency, because the exception has quite clearly
become the norm. Thus the constitutional and legal regulatory
framework must be assessed as more or less permanent powerconferring
provisions for general governance, notwithstanding
their intended purpose as occasionally invoked, special and
temporary measures. Actually, this is not a uniquely Sri Lankan
problem, in that even in constitutional democracies with relatively
strong rule of law and civil liberties traditions, the assumption of
separation between an emergency and normalcy are a constant
source of theoretical and practical problems. Attention to this
issue has increased in the West in the context of governmental
responses to terrorism in the aftermath of September 11.
However, these problems assume an aggravated form and quality
in countries such as Sri Lanka which are characterised by weak
rule of law cultures, fundamental anomalies of the State
constitutional order that generate internal political conLlict, and
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