Legal and Policy Issues in the Alienation of State Land for Peasantry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This paper reviews literature on the law governing alienation of State land for peasantry in order to identify legal issues in particular and socio economic issues associated with the operation of the law. This study which is primarily a legal study, is confined to two related law areas namely, the Land Development Ordinance No.18 of 1935 and the 13th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution. As revealed in the literature review, land as a source of economic and social issues entered the community as a result of the law and land policy adopted by the British colonial era. At the start, land utilization issues emerged as a social ethnic problem. Later it has become a political issue extending towards the worsening of the ethnic problem.In the final analysis, as the literature review reveals, country’s legal framework on the alienation of State land for peasantry in the context of major peasant settlement schemes is posing crucial legal issues on land tenure, gender discrimination, encroachment linked to productivity and living standards of the peasantry involving both statutes and constitutional aspects, which have had adverse impact on the proper administration of State land in Sri Lanka.