Sunday Punch 2
Does this Government harbour a death wish? That in a year of not one but two most important elections it has been inexorably driven to enact not one but two most unpopular bills to be introduced in Parliament in recent times that make it seem hellbent on committing hara-kiri in public.
Apart from the Antiterrorist bill that is lined up to be presented next, the euphemistically named ‘Online Safety Bill’ as if it has been specifically designed to protect a naïve virginal Lankan Red Riding Hood from the lecherous lures of wolves lurking in the dense worldwide web, was unceremoniously passed in Parliament on Wednesday evening amidst vehement protests from opposition benches.
After a stormy passage in a thicket of tensed air that hugged the House, the Bill was hurriedly rushed through without a third reading being called. TNA member Sumanthiran PC, who had been personally battling against its unconstitutional provision in the Supreme Court, claimed both in Parliament and TV channels, the Government had failed to make 13 necessary amendments as suggested by the Supreme Court to make it pass constitutional muster.
Sumanthiran PC, while vowing to return to the
Supreme Court, released the 13 clauses that needed revision, five of them substantial. He also listed out additional exemptions to the controversial bill which the Law Lords had suggested but which had been ignored.
With the legality of the Act in question, it behoves the Government to have second thoughts on the entire Act itself in its present form, and to desist leading the Lankan people into the long night of information ignorance, with their right to free expression unwantedly trammelled.