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Item Jurisprudential significance of Lutheran reformation on freedom and conscience in European legal thought.(The Department of Western Classical Culture & Christian Culture,University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Amarasinghe, P.From a theological perspective it will be an absurd argument to connect Martin Luther to the development of legal thought in Europe, because once Luther himself had coined the expression “Lawyers-bad Christians”. But Luther’s concept of conscience and freedom had galvanized the new dimensions of European legal thought before the dawn of nation state mechanism and this influence has been unmarked by many of modern legal historians and jurists. In such a context this paper intends to trace the Lutheran roots in freedom and conscience of European legal thinking in secular affairs. Unlike Aquinas Luther never insisted that conscience should be an application of knowledge, he rather focused on the conscience of freedom. Lutheran notion of conscience of freedom stands as a mystical sphere and it is the ultimate temptation. Under this reason, for Luther conscience of freedom became significant than the freedom of conscience. The union of church as the ultimate authority and its executive power was dramatically disrupted and modified by the Lutheran reformation. Luther’s rejection of Papal Bull sprang out of his conscience of freedom and his wide spread criticism against the canon authority agitated the temporal politics in Europe. In fact Luther’s idea on conscience of freedom was essentially centered on one’s personal approach to God without canon influence. This concept later developed the constitutional theory in West on liberty of conscience. Especially documents like Bill of Rights included the liberty of conscience as the liberty to worship God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience. Moreover this Lutheran foundation on the conscience and its freedom led the path to the constitutional concept called “Sovereignty of people”. This paper will further discuss deep theological influence laid down by Martin Luther in European temporal legal thought which eventually carved the modern nation state formation.Item Why do people tend to break the law in a system of democratic governance? In search of a public relations law and ethics in Sri Lanka(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jinadasa, M.When it comes to the golden age of public relations in the early mid-twentieth century in Europe, public relations consultants and institutions needed to incorporate a system of ethics to protect the human standards from the extreme use of sensational and personal matters in the media and communication. A system of media law referring to the discipline of public relations was later developed when ethics were insufficient to regulate the public relations campaign not damaging the existing social and cultural policy of the society. However, when it comes to the modern society of democratic governance, it is challenging to protect and conduct law and ethics leading to the professional standards of the practices of public relations in most capitalistic societies. Hence, the objective of this study is to explore the problems encountered in the violation of public relations law and ethics in the Sri Lankan context of democratic capitalism. This research was conducted using qualitative methods of case studies, participatory observations and textual and discourse analyses. Ten commercial advertisements produced in the Sri Lankan local media were critically analyzed using textual analysis and participatory observations leading to selected ten case studies on the advertisements. In-depth interviews were also utilized to explore these cases. Two years, from January 2013 to January 2015 was the time-frame. Data were critically and descriptively analyzed. Based on the research, this study makes the following conclusions. Protecting and conducting law and ethics in mostly a consumerist society in the capital economy could be relatively difficult, when the difference between marketing and public relations could not be properly identified. This has been mostly due to the lack of two aspects. One is the absence of a proper teaching and learning system that makes the difference between the use of marketing and the use of public relations, while public relations has also been taught at the marketing courses. And also the second aspect is insufficiency of the media literacy in the media society where there is a rapid expansion in the channels of media in Sri Lanka. Moreover, objectives of media owners are also shaped by the limited purposes of marketing and financial benefits, so that the violation of law is challengeable, when it is difficult to conduct the basic ethics in broadcasting advertisements in the local channels. Moreover, violation of law has been justified by the morals and dignity of the local politicians, in the use of media at the period of elections and their political dialogues. In a more micro level analysis, violation of ethics is the fact that affects the emergence of the insecurity of the law in the modern consumer society of the democratic capitalism. However, this study assumes the necessity of a productive teaching and learning system of morals and ethics that deeply emphasizes the relevance and significance of the conscience so that anyone can respond to others, when he/she able to account him/her.