Dullas moves motion to end humiliation some individuals suffer due to their names

SLPP Matara District dissident MP Dullas Alahapperuma has submitted a private member’s motion seeking the House approval to introduce mentioning only the initials of the family name along with the first name or the National Identity Card (NIC) number when calling out the name of a person publicly.

The motion listed in the latest Addendum to the Order Book of Parliament says that the government should take necessary measures to mention only the initials of the family name along with the first name or the NIC number when calling out the name of a person in public. The motion proposes to do so by “abolishing the law, the custom or the tradition that is rejected by the present generation and which cannot be applicable to the modern world whereas many persons are embarrassed when their first names are called out loud along with the family name during a court hearing or when a voter is asked to cast the vote during an election or when an undergraduate’s name is announced during a convocation where in the Sri Lankan society family names are mainly based on the duties vested to each person in the feudal society and the positions their ancestors had served the king there indicating the caste relevant to each profession.”