Description

As religious polarization in society deepens, political actors and policymakers have begun to struggle with questions about the role of the dominant religion and how religion influences constitutional commitments and development. By focusing on Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, Constitutions, Religion and Politics in Asia demonstrates how constitution-making and the operation of constitutional arrangements involving religion cannot be separated from the broader political dynamics of society. Although constitutions establish legal and political structures of government institutions and provide tools for rights protection, they do not operate in a vacuum divorced from the games of power and the political realities surrounding them. Here, Shah sets out how constitutions operate and evolve and demonstrates how constitutional provisions can produce unintended consequences over time. This book stands to be a vital new source of scholarship for students and scholars of law and religion and of comparative constitutional law, and those interested in issues of constitutionalism and legal and political history in Asia.

About The Author

Dr Dian A. H. Shah is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. She previously taught constitutional law at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya. Her research interests span the fields of constitutional history, comparative constitutional law and human rights, focusing on issues arising from the interaction between constitutional law, religion and politics in various Asian jurisdictions. She is also the co-editor of a volume on ‘Law and Society in Malaysia: Pluralism, Ethnicity and Religion’ (Routledge 2018). Dian currently serves as the Deputy Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law.

About The Panel Discussants

Prof Donald L. Horowitz is the James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science Emeritus at Duke University. He holds law degrees from Syracuse and Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993, Prof Horowitz served as President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 2007 to 2010. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Flemish-speaking Free University of Brussels. He is currently writing a book about constitutional process and design, particularly for divided societies, a subject on which he has advised in a number of countries.

Dr Mario Gomez is the Executive Director at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Sri Lanka. He was previously a Lecturer in public law, human rights and gender studies in the University of Colombo. He has published on human rights, constitutional reform, public law, gender equality and transitional justice. Mario has a PhD in law and teaches occasionally in the University of Colombo. He was a one-time member of the Law Commission of Sri Lanka and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. His publications include ‘The Politics of Dealing with the Past in Deeply Divided Sri Lanka’, ‘Constitutionalizing Economic and Social Rights in Sri Lanka’ (co-author), and ‘Lifting the Veil of Secrecy: The Right to Information in Emerging and Existing Democracies’.

Prof Simon Butt is currently an Associate Director of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney Law School. Prior to joining Sydney Law School as Senior Lecturer, Simon worked as a consultant on the Indonesian legal system to the Australian government, the private sector and international organisations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). He has taught in over 70 law courses in Indonesia on a diverse range of topics, including intellectual property, Indonesian criminal law, Indonesian terrorism law and legislative drafting. He is fluent in Indonesian.