BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

People of Sri Lanka have a serious doubt about the behaviour of the speaker as a rehearsal to pass the proposed new constitution using illegal and contradict techniques of modes operandi. Since the election of the Yahapalana government in 2015, the behaviour of the parliament speaker has been confused and reflected the dishonesty in passing important legislations. The people of Sri Lanka questioned about the changing of clauses and contents of the bills despite the decisions at committee stage, and important bills became laws which were contrary to the approval of the parliament.  Many bills were changed without consents of the parliament and opposition publicly expressed displeasures.  The speaker of the parliament was responsible for such wilful changes and the behaviour of the speaker regarding the approval of no confidence motion against appointed Prime Minister of the caretaker government by the president, Mr Sirisena was showed that it was an act against the established procedures and the order of the house.

Not a single Western diplomat or India expressed that the behaviour of the speaker was accurate and acceptable as making such a statement would be negatively impact on making decisions in their countries.  JVP has a history of attempting to overthrow democratically elected government and its actions in 1971 and 1987-88 in Sri Lanka were subject to the death of thousands rural and urban youth and they have no idea about democratic traditions and procedural matters.  JVP presented 20^th amendment to the constitution and the supreme court ruled that the amendment needs approval from two third members of parliament and a referendum of public. JVP needs learning political science and parliament procedures.

The main intention of the yahapalana regime was to introduce a new constitution and until the last year of the regime was unable to passed the constitution or present the draft constitution to the people. However, the committee appointed by the regime to draft the constitution have submitted an interim report, which mainly focused the following points to change current constitution.

• Converting Sri Lanka to a Federal State with provincial governments in a framework of a united country. The united country cannot divide creating sovereign countries. The committee attempted to confuse people using baffle terms.
• Converting Sri Lanka to a secular state. If the majority of population agrees to give priority to Buddhism, the relevant conditions for this status should be clearly indicated. This is an act affecting to the fundamental rights of people.
• The north and east of Sri Lanka should be merged and be established one provincial state. People of Sri Lanka disagree with proposal of the committee.
• The executive power of provinces or taken over by any of the power. This idea is contrary with the republic system in the world.
• To earn funds for the implementation of the delegated power of provincial states should be given authority of the provincial governments. This is also questionable conditions, and
• The Executive Presidency in the country must be abolished and such executive power should be given to the prime minister of the central government. The Executive Presidency is constitutional feature that protect the country

There is no doubt that 90% Sri Lanka’s population is highly concerned about the interim report and they clearly disagree with the way expects to change the constitution or the proposed new constitution to be introduced.  About 80% population of Sri Lanka are Sinhala, who are clearly against the proposed framework of the constitution.  In this background, the proposed constitution would be approved by nether a referendum or a majority of the members of the parliament.

As the yahapalana regime promised outside forces to introduce the proposed constitution and it is difficult to do in the legal and procedural framework, people have a doubt whether the behaviour the speaker is an attempt to pass the constitution by illegal and contrary to the procedure and the order of the house.