A/HRC/43/48/Add.2 B. National legal and institutional framework on freedom of religion or belief 6. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity are recognized by law. Article 10 of the Constitution of Sri Lanka guarantees to every person the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his or her choice. Article 14 (1) (e) further protects the freedom of every citizen, either by himself or herself, or in association with others, and either in public or in private, to manifest his or her religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching. Moreover, article 12 guarantees everyone’s right to equality and prohibits discrimination against any citizen or anyone on the grounds of race, religion, language, caste, sex, political opinion or place of birth. 7. Meanwhile, article 9 of the Constitution states that “the Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14 (1) (e)”. 8. In article 14 (1) (a), the Constitution provides for every citizen freedom of speech and expression, including publication; in article 14 (1) (b), freedom of peaceful assembly; and in article 14 (1) (c) freedom of association. Article 15 lays out the restrictions to the exercise and operation of the fundamental rights provided in article 14 (1) in the interests of racial and religious harmony or in relation to parliamentary privilege, contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence, or national economy. 9. The Penal Code (Ordinance No. 2 of 1883) also regulates certain offences related to religion. Articles 290 and 290A relate to injuring or defiling, or any act in relation to, a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class, while article 291 covers disturbing a religious assembly, article 291A relates to uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings, and article 291B refers to deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class, by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. Article 292 refers to trespassing on burial places. 10. Matters related to family law, including divorce, child custody and property inheritance, are normally resolved according to either the customary law, such as Muslim law, Kandyan law or Thesavalamai law, or the existing civil law. However, the practice varies by region according to different religious communities. 11. On 10 December 2019, the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Cultural and Religious Affairs was formed to oversee all religious and cultural affairs in the country. Consequently, all previous individual ministries responsible for Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Muslim religious affairs were integrated under one ministry.2 C. Engagement with international human rights mechanisms 12. Sri Lanka has ratified all core human rights treaties and is a State party to several optional protocols.3 It has also accepted some individual complaint procedures and inquiry procedures of the treaty bodies.4 Apart from fulfilling reporting obligations to treaty bodies 5 and to the Human Rights Council for the universal periodic review, Sri Lanka engaged actively with the Council when it co-sponsored Council resolution 30/1 on promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka, through which it was reaffirmed that all Sri Lankans are entitled to the full enjoyment of their human rights regardless of religion, belief or ethnicity, following the pledge by the incoming Government in 2015 to strengthen fundamental freedoms and the rule of the law that 2 3 4 5 Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, No. 2153/12. For the ratification status of Sri Lanka for these treaties, see https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/ TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?CountryID=164&Lang=EN. Ibid. For the reporting status of Sri Lanka, see https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal /countries.aspx?CountryCode=LKA&Lang=EN. 3