President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed three new members to the Presidential Task Force for One Country, One Law.

This was mentioned in a special gazette notification published by the Secretary to the President, P.B. Jayasundera.

The newly-appointed members of the task force are Ramalingam Chakrawarthy Karunakaran, Yogeswari Patgunarajah and Iyyampillai Dayanandaraja.

A 13-member task force, chaired by Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thero, was appointed on October 26, to study the implementation of the concept “One Country, One Law” and to prepare a draft Act.

Hwoever, two of its members, Prof. Dayananda Banda and Lecturer Mohamed Inthikab later stepped down from the panel.

The task force now consists of 14 members in total, including Prof. Shanthinandana Wijesinghe, Prof. Sumedha Siriwardana, N.G. Sujeewa Panditharathna, Attorney-at-Law Iresh Senevirathne, Attorney-at-Law Sanjaya Marambe, Eranda Navarathna, Pani Wewala,, Moulavi Mohamed of Ulama Council in Galle, Kaleel Rahuman and Azeez Nizardeen.

The new appointments were made after taking into consideration the representations made various parties with regard to the composition of the membership and its Terms of Reference, the gazette notification read.

The focus also fell on the need for pluralistic character and gender equality of the Sri Lankan society to be reflected in the composition of the membership of this Task Force.

In the new gazette notification, President Rajapaksa also amended the terms of reference of the task force as follows: Presenting proposals for formulating a conceptual framework ideally suited for Sri Lanka after making a study of the said concept taking into account the views and opinions held by various parties with regard to the implementation of the concept: “One Country, One Law”.

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