Historic impeachment motion not recorded in Parliament

The impeachment motion initiated to remove President Ranasinghe Premadasa from office in August 1991 and became the subject of much controversy over allegations that some signatures on it were forged is not in the possession of Parliament, the response to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by the Sunday Times has revealed.

Parliament Standing Orders require that all motions or

resolutions to be included in the Order Book initially and after five days, these motions or resolutions need to be included in the Order Paper to be taken up for consideration.

“However the relevant motion/resolution ( Impeachment Motion) requested could not be considered as a parliamentary or public document since it had not been placed on the Order Book of Parliament. Therefore, the information requested by you is not in our possession,” the Information officer and Parliament's Assistant Secretary General Tikiri K. Jayathilake said.

The Constitution requires that an Impeachment motion to be signed by not less than two thirds of the Members of the House if it is to be entertained by the Speaker. The motion handed over in August 1991 to the then Speaker M.H. Mohamed was entertained by him initially only to be de-entertained a month later.

In a statement made to the House on Sept. 25,1991, the Speaker said he had been given notice of a an Impeachment Motion and “having satisfied myself that the resolution is in order I decided to entertain it.” Speaker Mohamed also said that subsequently written and oral representations had been made to him questioning the validity of the signatures on the resolution and he was looking into this matter.

A month later, on October 8, 1991, the Speaker made an announcement that sealed the fate of the impeachment motion.

“I wish to inform the House that having inquired into the matter, I am now of the view that the resolution does not have the required number of valid signatures, and therefore it cannot be proceeded with,” he said.