Instead of jiggery-pokery, fix the PC system
TSUNDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2017
here is a pithy local saying ‘nangi pennala akka dunna’ (showed the younger sister and palmed off the elder one) to describe what happened before an arranged marriage where the marriage broker or the prospective groom was conned and taken for a ride.
Whether this is indicative of what the Government did last week in passing the amendments to the Provincial Councils Bill is being hotly debated. Adamant as it was to put off scheduled Provincial Council elections due by the end of this year in three provinces, the Government was not going to take a Supreme Court determination ordering a referendum, if it wanted to do just that through a 20th Amendment, lying down.
The Government dusted a partly drafted Bill to provide women a quota at future elections, and through a bypass route introduced amendments to the amendment and bought time to delay holding elections. The hapless Attorney General is being blamed for giving his imprimatur to the Constitutional validity of all of these amendments. Critics say this is circumventing the Supreme Court that sits as the country’s Constitutional Court.
The Government says it is difficult to turn the omelette it has cooked back into an egg. A section of the Opposition is howling ‘blue murder’, while another section is being accused of passively concurring with the Government. ‘Fiat justitia ruat caelum’ – let justice be done even if the heavens may fall, is an old Latin phrase used as a legal term in English Law that means whatever the consequences, justice must be done.
The Government will not say there has been an error of Parliament, and the consequences of a defeat at the polls will be a fate worse than an accusation that it made a mockery of the legislative process. Many Governments do what they think are smart manoeuvres such as this, only to pay for them in the long run. As the country celebrates 70 years of parliamentary democracy here’s another clever piece of legislative jiggery-pokery to add to its historical records.
As we said last week, the entire Provincial Council debate revolves round elections to it – and has become a game of power-politics. This Government has even had to put its good governance theme on hold to postpone elections, and get over what may have been an embarrassing hurdle. Instead, the Government should see how to fix the Provincial Council system which serves neither man nor beast.