MORAL QUESTIONS INVOLVING 20 A

Understandably this article is being written before the outcome of the voting on the 20th Amendment to the Constitution Bill which was debated yesterday and the day before is known. Whatever the outcome of it is, the amendment well exposed the political culture of the politicians as well as the ordinary people of the country again.

What was to be taken for the debate on Tuesday was not the original Bill that was published in the Gazette on September 2 and presented in Parliament on September 22.

An unprecedented 39 petitions had been filed against the Amendment in the Supreme Court by September 29 when the court commenced hearing.

Attorney General Dappula de Livera informed the court that the government would present several amendments to the Bill during the Committee Stage of the Parliamentary debate on the Bill and Government agreed to drop four clauses of the Bill which the Supreme Court said inconsistent with the Constitution.

Originally the opposition to the Bill came from the Opposition parties, which is traditional and also obvious, considering the contents of it.

Then a few members of the ruling coalition, mainly those affiliated to the friendly parties of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) expressed their reservations about several clauses of the Bill. They were individually concerned about one or more of the clauses on allowing dual citizens to contest elections, excluding the offices of President and the Prime Minister and companies with more than 50 percent State shares from the State audit process, increasing the number of Cabinet and other Ministers, allowing the government to bring in urgent Bills and a clause involving free and fair elections.

Majority members of the SLPP and its allies defended the original Bill in toto. Amazingly they were even agreeable to the removal of offices of the President and the Prime Minister and State companies from the State auditing process.

Some of them slavishly argued that since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has not been found guilty of any corruption the need for auditing did not arise.

Even one accepts the integrity of President Rajapaksa, for the sake of argument; this is not a question of a particular person, but a question of a system.

This is Constitution-making. Can they give an assurance about the integrity of the future Presidents?

This attitude shows that they are unbecoming of lawmakers. However, when the Government agreed to drop some clauses following the Supreme Court ruling and the reservations by several leading Buddhist monks, the same government members were seen hailing the government for listening to others’ views.

During the Parliamentary debate, some members argued that the 20th Amendment was essential to remove the highly muddled 19th Amendment, which paved the way for the terrorist attacks on the Christian churches and the five-star hotels last year on Easter Sunday.

This type of contentions attests the sense of duty towards the people and the depth of knowledge of some of the lawmakers. The terrorist attacks on April 21 last year was not a result of any weakness of law or lack of intelligence; rather it was clear negligence on the part of the law enforcement authorities who had prior information on the attacks with the names of the perpetrators and possible targets. 19th Amendment had nothing to do with it.

One does not need in-depth knowledge to understand that the 20th Amendment erodes the independence of the Judiciary, Public Service, Police, the independent institutions such as the Attorney General’s Department, Offices of the Auditor General, Ombudsman and the Elections Commission, as it confers the President with the exclusive right to appoint and remove the Heads of all those institutions.

Under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the President can only recommend names for these posts which had to be approved by the Constitutional Council consisting of Opposition members and members of the civil society as well. The President had been barred from appointing or removing high officials arbitrarily. However, with the President being conferred with the power to appoint and especially to sack these officials by the 20th Amendment, they all would have to carry out their duties with a sense of fear of being removed, if they did not toe the line of the powers that be.

Also, even the Opposition in Parliament has to be careful not to create a situation where the President would dissolve Parliament in two and a half years (In one year according to the original Bill).

With the ruling coalition obtaining the two-thirds of votes in Parliament one way or another, some of these officials and institutions were used to deprive them of their own independence. Attorney General and the Court were tasked to judge the legality of the Bill and not to evaluate the degree of democracy in their appointments under the 19th and 20th Amendments.

However, the Parliament members were given the opportunity to choose between the degrees of democracy under the two amendments and interestingly the majority in the House had opted for the lesser one.

It was clear from the beginning that even those who had reservations on various provisions of the Bill would meekly submit finally and vote for it. Having sensed these compulsions to vote for the Bill beforehand, the NFF leader Wimal Weerawansa along with his reservations informed the government that he considered his duty to protect the government is far more important than his reservations.

Despite several members of it and its friendly parties and also leading members of the clergy having protested against the dual citizens contesting elections, the SLPP that always brag about its patriotism had ignored those protests.

A leading supporter of the government Ven. Medagoda Abhayatissa Thera told media on Wednesday that the President promised to include provisions in the proposed new Constitution that would exclude the dual citizens from contesting elections until which time they would be allowed to contest under the 20th Amendment.

What could be the rationale behind the temporary permission for the dual citizens to contest elections? The Thera quoted the President as saying that since the provision barring the dual citizens from contesting was introduced to the 19th Amendment targeting Rajapaksas, he would do the opposite for the moment. Does it mean that the Constitution making is being used for the purpose of tit for tat?

One does not need in-depth knowledge to understand that the 20th Amendment erodes the independence of the Judiciary, Public Service, Police, the independent institutions such as the Attorney General’s Department, Offices of the Auditor General, Ombudsman and the Elections Commission, as it confers the President with the exclusive right to appoint and remove the Heads of all those institutions

Whatever the outcome of it is, the amendment well exposed the political culture of the politicians

What could be the rationale behind the temporary permission for the dual citizens to contest elections?

This is Constitutionmaking. Can they give an assurance about the integrity of the future Presidents?

Even one accepts the integrity of President Rajapaksa, for the sake of argument; this is not a question of a particular person, but a question of a system.

Some of them slavishly argued that since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has not been found guilty of any corruption the need for auditing did not arise