Stop the country from heading towards disaster
At the very inception I must emphasise that being a septuagenarian, I hold no brief with any party or individual but what is contained in this letter is my personal view about the present state of affairs in the country.
It is no secret that the President is using his Executive powers in an unconstitutional manner. He assumes that he is the monarch of all he surveys. The concept of democracy is completely forgotten and the President is acting in a dictatorial manner by throwing away all norms of democracy. Now, democracy in the country is in the wilderness. It is quite clear that the step taken by the President to prorogue Parliament before its stipulated period of five years, is completely unconstitutional unless in a dire necessity.
Article 33 (2) of the Constitution gives blanket (hidden) powers to the President to dissolve Parliament according to his wish (this is a quotation from the 1978 Constitution). But the 19th Amendment 70 (1) prohibits the President from dissolving Parliament to suit his whims and fancies, until the expiry of 4 ½ years. Of course I am not a legal luminary to come to conclusions in this regard, but this is merely my understanding of the present scenario. But, at the same time, I must stress that the act of dissolving parliament was an erudite decision taken by him, which gives a chance to the voters to exercise their franchise to elect a new regime.
Now, the President has started to give lame excuses why he prorogued parliament. It is nothing but quite clear that his party would not be able to muster the sufficient number of votes in Parliament, in an election.
He is blaming the Speaker for all these mishaps but of course, the Speaker too, should have acted in a more appropriate manner on several occasions. The very unruly behaviour of these parliamentarians on both sides, is clearly a severe setback for the image of the country, proudly known as the Wonder of Asia.
As I see it, the country as a whole is heading for disaster. The final outcome will be that Sri Lanka might get isolated from the international community. As such, I earnestly request these parliamentarians to use their brains and not brawn, and not to disgrace this august assembly, by exhibiting their disgraceful behaviour. Lionel Caldera Battaramulla