The United National Party said on Sunday that any government decision on Buddhist monastic discipline must go through an established procedure that requires Cabinet papers to be presented to the Chief Prelates and the Maha Sangha before action is taken, Ada Derana reported.

In a statement, the UNP said an existing mechanism for handling such issues is already in place and that all actions should be carried out “in accordance with the country’s traditions and established practices.” The views of the Buddhist clergy and the lay community “are being increasingly sidelined” in the ongoing discourse around reform, the party said. It also alleged that a coordinated campaign targeting the Buddha Sasana and Buddhism was being conducted through social media platforms associated with the government.

The statement, carried in fuller form by Newswire, criticised President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent remarks endorsing past royal precedents for disciplining monks who distort the religion. The UNP cited the killing of monks during the 1987–89 JVP insurrection — naming nine clergymen it said were assassinated — and asked whether “the JVP, which has a history of killing monks, can do such a thing after taking power.” It said the JVP had never apologised for the killings or for the looting of historical items from monasteries and temples in that period.

The UNP statement also pointed to Chapter 17 of the 1978 Constitution, which it credited to former President J.R. Jayewardene, as the existing constitutional basis for handling indiscipline among monks through a Sangha Court. It said precedent already exists for taking offending monks to court “in their robes,” citing the prosecutions of Talduwe Somarama and Mapitigama Buddharakkhita over the assassination of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike.

The party’s intervention is the first opposition response to the Cabinet’s pledge to amend the Vihara and Devalagam (Special Provisions) Act and to former President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s proposal for a Buddhist Dharma Council, both announced on 27 May. The UNP, reduced to a minor party in the current Parliament, framed its critique in procedural rather than religious terms — arguing the government is moving without prior consultation, not that disciplinary reform itself is unwarranted.

Ada Derana said the UNP statement was issued on 31 May; Newswire published the full text the same day.

Sources: Ada Derana, Newswire.