Participation in PSC conditional

Deliberations must be based on five different documents

As a precondition for participation in the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), the United National Party (UNP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) sought an assurance from the government to base its deliberations on the five different documents worked out at different times to resolve the national question, party officials said yesterday.

The report by the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) headed by the late MP Mangala Moonasinghe during the time of late President Ranasinghe Premadasa in the 1980s was one among these documents. Among the other documents were the expert panel report of the All Party Representative Committee headed by Minister Tissa Vitharana, the 2000 power devolution package, and the two sets of political proposals introduced in 1995 and 1997 during the former President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s time.

The government decided last week to appoint the PSC as a forum to evolve proposals for the resolution of the national question through a mechanism, acceptable to all the parties in Parliament. First, the government mooted the idea for a PSC nearly two years ago. However, it did not become a reality due to differences with the opposition. Now, the government has decided to move ahead even despite the absence of any party. Yet, the ruling coalition made a fresh request to the opposition to nominate their members to the PSC, at the Parliamentary Business Committee meeting held last Thursday.

UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake who attended it said his party asked the government to put forward its ‘intent’ first as a condition for it. Or else, he said, the government should agree to conduct the affairs of the PSC based on the five documents as agreed with the TNA.

“Otherwise, this will be an exercise by the government for external consumption. We cannot make a mockery out of this Select Committee. There are serious concerns about past Select Committees such as the one that probed charges against former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake,” he said.

TNA National List MP M. A. Sumanthiran also said his party emphasised the need to use these five documents as the basis of talks.

“Initially, we insisted that the TNA and the government should pursue bipartisan

The report by the PSC headed by the late MP Mangala Moonasinghe was one among these documents

talks for a consensus. Then, that common position can be used as the foundation for discussion at the PSC with other parties. Later, we even conceded more after the Leader of the Opposition met with the government,” Mr. Sumanthiran said.

The TNA MP said, “The Leader of the Opposition made a statement in Parliament on May 23, 2012 asking for a specific agenda and a frame for conducting PSC affairs. That was after a meeting with the government. We conceded in this case. We only wanted the government to take up the five documents as the basis for discussion. We compromised our initial stand that there should be an understanding between the government and the TNA first,” he said.