The Young Researchers Forum 2012 20th & 21st January, 2012 Western Province Aesthetic Resort, Colombo

Session: Crime, Violence and Justice Date: 21st January, 2012 Time: 11.15am-12.15pm
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The Young Researchers Forum 2012 (In)Justice in Sri Lankan Society: Alternative Understandings of Justice in Sri Lanka Shashik Dhanushka Silva shashikdhanushka@yahoo.com According to John Rawls "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. However, justice is not an absolute concept but rather a socially constructed phenomenon. Therefore, justice has many meanings and depends on the historical and political experience of that society and the term justice is ascribed varying levels of importance and different meanings. Unlike in the liberal societies

conceptualized by Rawls, the meaning assigned to the word justice in the illiberal societies could be quite different.

Understanding what justice means to the Sri Lankan community is of paramount importance for many reasons. Amongst them the fact that uncovering the paradox of why injustice (extra judicial methods) is tolerable if not appealing to our community, as a means of achieving justice, is certainly a million dollar question. The recent events of executions of accused (summary killings) held in police custody, community reactions to Grease Yaka incidents, demonstrate the appeal for the use of apparently unjust methods in order to in achieve justice. This phenomenon can be observed even in the village community where people tend to punish the accusers of various wrong doing at their discretion rather than looking to the rule of law.

The Young Researchers Forum 2012

In this context, I would like to study my own village to understand how communities perceive justice and how they pursue it in their day to day life. In this research I like to examine the following problem and questions:

Problem: Why people tolerate, if not approve the practices of extrajudicial means of achieving justice? People often complain about the prevalence of injustice in society and yet nevertheless either tolerate and at times even pursue unjust methods in order to seek justice for wrongs committed against them.

In order to examine the above problem I would like to explore the following questions: 1. What are the meanings that people assign to the word Justice? 2. Their knowledge and attitudes about the formal institutions that deliver justice 3. How they seek justice for injustices that they face in their daily life?

I will be using a mixed methodology to pursue this study. I will be conducting a series of interviews amongst villages to understand their life experience and their attitudes toward justice. In addition I will study few selected case studies in the village that demonstrate the paths that villagers have taken in seeking justice for the injustice that they have faced. In addition I will be using available secondary data through the survey reports and other publications.

The Young Researchers Forum 2012