An ousting, a challenge for duel and other boisterous scenes rock the House
Heated verbal exchanges, protests, insults and an open challenge to a fight outside the Chamber marked yet another tumultuous week for the country’s Ninth Parliament. The reason for the mayhem stemmed from the announcement made by Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Wednesday that the Secretary General of Parliament had written to the Election Commission (EC) announcing that the Parliamentary seat of Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Gampaha District MP Ranjan Ramanayake had fallen vacant. Mr Ramanayake is currently serving a four-year prison sentence after the Supreme Court found him guilty of Contempt of Court.
In his announcement, Speaker Abeywardena said that the Secretary General of Parliament had written to the EC that Mr Ramanayake had “ceased to be a Member of Parliament in terms of Article 66 (d) of the Constitution.” The provision deals with how a seat of an MP becomes vacant. In Mr Ramanayake’s case, he has been disqualified to be an MP in terms of Article 89 or 91 of the Constitution, as he has been sentenced to a prison term of four years by the Supreme Court.
Mr Ramanayake had earlier filed a writ petition in the Court of Appeal (CA) seeking an interim injunction preventing the Secretary General of Parliament from taking any action regarding his Parliamentary seat. A two judge bench of the CA rejected the petition on
Monday, which led to the letter being sent to the EC.
Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa protested the Speaker’s ruling, arguing that he should have announced his decision first to Parliament instead of doing so after the letter had been forwarded to the EC. “Why this undue haste to remove him (Ramanayake) from his MP seat. This is unjust,” he stressed. Mr Premadasa also erroneously claimed that the Speaker had ruled Mr Ramanayake was disqualified from being an MP on the grounds that he had not attended Parliament for three months without leave, and noted that the Speaker had refused to approve a leave motion for the MP earlier on the grounds that a court case over the MP’s seat was pending.
The section which Mr Premadasa quoted regarding an MP’s seat being vacant if he absents himself without leave from Parliament was actually Article 66 (f) and not 66 (d).
SJB MPs then attempted to approach the Speaker’s Chair, leading to tense scenes. Order however, was eventually restored.
Speaker Abeywardena gave a far more extensive explanation on Thursday regarding the content of the letter sent to the EC. He pointed out that the Opposition Leader’s position that Mr Ramanayake’s seat had been deemed vacant due to non-attendance of Parliament for three months was wrong. He called the behaviour and allegations levelled by some MPs over the incident “unwanted and baseless” and asked them to conduct themselves in a more dignified manner.
Mr Premadasa, who wore a black armband along with other SJB MPs to protest the decision on Mr Ramanayake, expressed regret for misquoting the relevant provision of the Constitution. He however, insisted that the House should recognise that Mr Ramanayake had recourse to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal regarding his Parliamentary seat and that he will challenge the decision in the Supreme Court. As such, Mr Premadasa maintained that the decision to write to the EC about the seat failing vacant was wrong and said that the “decent thing” for the House to do was to approve a leave of absence for Mr Ramanayake until the Supreme Court reached a decision on the matter.
The Opposition Leader further alleged that there was a “conspiracy” on the part of the Government to deprive Mr Ramanayake of his Parliamentary seat. “Unfortunately, you seem to be involved in that conspiracy,” he told the Speaker.
Speaker Abeywardena dismissed the Opposition Leader’s allegations as “baseless,” and said his decision was based on the ruling given by the CA and relevant provisions of the Constitution. Leader of the House Dinesh Gunawardena meanwhile, pointed out that Mr Ramanayake was not the first person to lose his MP seat following a court ruling. He noted that a significant number of MPs, including the late Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake had lost their seats following court rulings. “Whether we like the decision or not, we have to set aside our emotions and respect the Constitution.”
Matters quickly got out of hand when SJB MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka rose to remind the Government how it had treated him during the period from 2010 to 2015. “The Speaker who was party to the barbaric treatment meted out to me is sitting in this Chamber now,” the MP said, referring to former Speaker and current Minister Chamal Rajapaksa. “A kangaroo court of the army convicted me and I spent eight months in remand. I appealed to three different courts over this ruling. While all those cases were pending, the former Speaker sitting here did not allow me to come to Parliament from the day the sentence was imposed on me,” he accused.
A furious Mr Rajapaksa countered that it was he who had allowed the Field Marshal to ultimately attend Parliament. The heated exchange between the two led to other MPs from both sides joining in, with insults and unparliamentary language being hurled back and forth. At one point, Mr Rajapaksa even challenged Field Marshal Fonseka to “step outside” to settle the matter.
All attempts to restore order thereafter failed and SJB MPs, carrying placards in support of Mr Ramanayake, started shouting loudly and protesting from the Opposition benches. Government MPs too, then came to the well of the House to confront the SJB MPs, with some putting up hastily scrawled placards countering those from the SJB. The Speaker had to briefly suspend sittings for close to 20 minutes. There was however, no physical violence between the two sides.
When sittings recommenced, Mr Rajapaksa apologised for his outburst.
The SJB's protests were to no avail. On Friday, after his name was gazetted by the Election Commission, Ajith Mannapperuma took oaths as the SJB MP from Gampaha to fill the seat left vacant by Mr Ramanayake. He had obtained 47, 212 preferential votes at the last Parliamentary election and finished fifth in the district from the SJB, making him next in line to enter Parliament.
Parliament will reconvene at 10 a.m. on April 20.