{"id":105691,"date":"2020-08-20T15:57:42","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T22:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105691"},"modified":"2020-08-20T15:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T22:57:42","slug":"statement-of-the-national-joint-committee-regarding-the-proposed-20th-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/20\/statement-of-the-national-joint-committee-regarding-the-proposed-20th-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Statement of the National Joint Committee Regarding the Proposed 20th Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.)\u00a0 \u00a0K M B Kotakadeniya <\/em><\/span>(Senior DIG Retd.) –<\/em><\/span>C<\/strong><\/span>o-Presidents National Joint Committee<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The\nNational Joint Committee (NJC) wishes to convey its best wishes to his\nExcellency the President, and his Government elected with an overwhelming\nmajority, in Parliament. We have utmost confidence that the Government would\nfulfill its pledge to remove numerous constitutional provisions introduced to\nthe Constitution through many amendments that has plagued the structure of this\nstate. It was reported in a lead news report that the Minister of Justice Hon.\nAli Sabry is drafting the amendment he intends tabling before Parliament in mid-September,\nthe contents of which we are unaware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However\nwe are perturbed by certain statements supposed to have been made by him in a\ntelevised interview the contents of which are referred to in same newspaper\nthat \u2018Provincial Councils would not be abolished\u2019. He justifies this statement\non the basis that the 13th Amendment involved international obligations on Sri\nLanka as it was promulgated under the Indo-Lanka Accord. We need to remind the\nHon. Minister that India failed to fulfill its part of the obligation including\ntheir obligation to disarm the ruthless terrorists. It was our valiant soldiers\nincluding his Excellency the President that saved this country from brutal\nterrorism. Furthermore we do not need anybody\u2019s permission to revise our\nconstitution. Therefore to say that his Government is not willing to abolish\nthe 13th Amendment is most unfortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nhave now existed without these provincial councils for almost 3 years. The Provincial\ncouncils are white elephants which this country cannot afford. The 13th<\/sup>\nAmendment provides for the creation of ethnic enclaves by amalgamation of\nprovinces (Article 154A (3)). Police powers are given to the Provincial\nCouncils (although not implemented yet). The Provincial Police force is to be\ncontrolled by the Chief Minister of the Province (vide clause 11:1 of Appendix\nI of the Provincial Council List in the 9th<\/sup> Schedule). The LTTE is\ncommemorated by racist politicians even today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nParliament is able to repeal its own laws with a simple majority it should also\nbe able to repeal Provincial legislation too sans a two thirds majority.\n(Article 154G (2) and (3)) The NJC is strongly of the view that the supremacy\nof Parliament must be maintained and for that purpose the power of Parliament\nhitherto exercised (prior to 1987) must be restored forthwith. The provisions\nintroduced for provincial legislation to supersede national legislation (Article\n154G (8) and (9)) should be removed. The powers included in the Provincial Council\nList pertaining to \u2018Ancient and Historical monuments and records\u2019 should also\nbe repealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly\nwe call upon the Government to rescind these obnoxious provisions forthwith. It\nwas also reported that the Government intends to amend some of the provisions\nintroduced by the 19th Amendment and to postpone dealing with other objectionable\nprovisions for a future occasion. It is necessary to place on record that this\nGovernment came into power to restore the lost rights of the people forcibly removed\nthrough these amendments more specifically by the 13th and 16th<\/sup> Amendments.\nTherefore these injustices must be rectified forthwith as a matter of priority.\nWe also strongly urge the Government to do away with the existing proportional representation\nsystem of elections and revert to the first past the post system as it existed\nprior to 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ndo not see any rational reason in abolishing the 19th Amendment and postponing the\ncorrection of other historical injustices thrust upon the people by successive governments\nthrough the present constitution and its amendments. Therefore we urge that\nthis Government harness all its available resources to rearrange the\nconstitutional structure of the state forthwith as a new constitutional\narrangement is the wish of all the people that voted this Government to office.\nThe NJC has done a comprehensive study of the historical injustices caused by\nthe aforementioned amendments and therefore we are in a position to assist the\nGovernment in the preparation of a new constitutional arrangement if an\nopportunity is given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt\nCol. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.)                              K M B Kotakadeniya (Senior\nDIG Retd.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-Presidents\nNational Joint Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.)\u00a0 \u00a0K M B Kotakadeniya (Senior DIG Retd.) –Co-Presidents National Joint Committee The National Joint Committee (NJC) wishes to convey its best wishes to his Excellency the President, and his Government elected with an overwhelming majority, in Parliament. We have utmost confidence that the Government would fulfill its pledge to remove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}