{"id":106330,"date":"2020-09-06T15:57:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T22:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106330"},"modified":"2020-09-06T15:57:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-06T22:57:37","slug":"19-a-has-no-reason-to-remain-in-the-constitution-of-sri-lanka-20a-is-a-welcome-alternative-but-13-a-remains-yet-to-be-removed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/06\/19-a-has-no-reason-to-remain-in-the-constitution-of-sri-lanka-20a-is-a-welcome-alternative-but-13-a-remains-yet-to-be-removed\/","title":{"rendered":"19 A has no reason to remain in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, 20A is a welcome alternative. But 13 A remains yet to be removed."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S . Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

When the people had sanctioned the removal of UNP \nfrom  Parliament , there was no reason to keep 19A any more in the\nConstitution. It was introduced by Maithreepala Sirisena- Ranil Wickramasinghe\nduo on the19th April,2015, by Ranil Wickramasinghe to remove the executive\npowers of the President and make the Presidency a Ceremonial office, and\nas  he knew that he would never be the President of Sri Lanka, to have the\nexecutive powers of the President  conferred on himself as the Prime\nMinister of Sri Lanka. Maithrpala Sirisena was duped to accept it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19A mutilated the Constitution and made democracy meaningless.\n19 A was a tool in the hands of Ranil Wckramasinha to make a mockery of\nParliamentary Democracy.  JVP  participated in it with Ranil\nWickramasinghe hoping to reap benefits from it to remove the influence of\nRajapaksas in the parliamentary politics in the country, and become the second\nmain political party In Sri Lanka.  With 19A in the Constitution Prime\nMinister Ranil Wickramasinghe became powerful and acted as a pseudo Dictator\ncontrolling every aspect of Governance, the Executive, the Legislature and the\nJudiciary,  making the Speaker of the House his  Cabin Boy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had the Parliament for himself for  four and a half\nyears . He had his  buddies around him to do his biddings. Arjun Mahendran\nas the Governor of Central Bank, Ranjan Ramanayake to control the Judiciary,\nRishad Budyudin and  Rauf Hakim to keep his Muslim  vote bank safe.\nHe had the Temple Trees for himself  where he was working with \nForeign enemies of Sri Lanka  to prepare trade agreements ,  and agreements\nwith China to sell the National treasures. When he was sacked by the \nPresident he would not leave and was sure he could get a judgment in his favour\nand he had it  one of the Supreme court Judges Sarath de Arbrew\nasserting  that the Parliament cannot be dissolved before four and a half\nyears ? That was the 19A in the hands of  the Prime Minister  Ranil\nWickramasinghe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sajith Premadasa was also hoping that 19A  would remain, so\nthat  he may some day use parts of  the 19 A for his own\nbenefit.  JVP  had established a special committee to accuse Mahinda\nRajapaksa, his family and his supporters for theft, Bribery and\ncorruption.  The JVP Parliamentarian for Anuradhapura Wasantha\nSamarasinhe  we saw carrying loads of files to the office of the\nCommissioner of Bribery and Corruption , while Anura Kumara Dissanayaka\nwas  sitting with the Prime Minister at a committee to decide who should\nbe arrested by FCID- Prime Minister\u2019s special police force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This degenerative 19A  personal political tool of Ranil\nWickramsinghe is finally to be removed. What a relief for the people of this\ncountry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now  the proposed 20A,may be it has restored all or some of\nthe powers JR Jayawardhana had written into the Constitution in 1978; but\nPresident Gotabaya Rajapaksa is not  JR Jayawardhana.  President Gotabaya\nRajapksa is a man with a head full of good ideas to take Sri Lanka forward,\ntherefore he has to have enough space to work out his plans and lay them\ndown  for execution. What he wants is not an administrative bureaucracy .\nHe wants a team to work with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Times Political Editor  wrote soldier-turned-politician\nGotabaya Rajapaksa , yes he was a soldier, a soldier who won a war against\nterrorism. He  now wants to be a President to win a political and a\nfinancial war to bring back security, peace, and prosperity to Sri Lanka. \nTherefore 20A would be a tool for him to act confidently to achieve success in\nhis effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However the 20 A is only an interim amendment,  before the\nintroduction of a new Constitution to Sri Lanka. Therefore there is no real\nreason for the opposition political parties to have heart attacks for something\nthat would not last more than perhaps one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is another matter with regard to the Amendments to the\nConstitution that should not be overlooked; it is the 13th Amendment. There is\nno question why it should not GO- removed from the constitution  for the\ngood of all  free thinking people of Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact it should have been removed from the Constitution of Sri\nLanka  in March  1990 wben the last Contingent of Indian Peace\nKeeping Force left Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One cannot understand why even the President Mahainda Rajapakse\ndid not say  no to 13A then , instead of talking about a 13 plus on more\nthan one occasion.  13A was a part of  the India Sri Lanka Accord\nsigned  in August ,1987.  There were two parties to the India Sri\nLanka Accord in which India agreed to  guarantee and enforce  the\ncessation of  terrorist  hostilities  provided the Government of\nSri Lanka agreed to enter  the 13th Amendment ( which had been prepared by\nIndia) to the Sri Lanka Constitution.  Sri Lanka promptly introduced the\n13th Amendment to the Constitution by the President JR Jayawardhana \nforcing the  parliamentarians to vote in favour of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the Government had already kept its part of the Accord\n, but the Government of India failed tot keep its part of the Accord,- to\nguarantee and enforce the cessation of terrorist hostilities, as the Indian\nPeace Keeping Force could not stop  the LTTE hostilities.  Hence \nlegally the India Sri Lanka Accord ceased to exist when the IPKF left Sri Lanka\nhaving failed to keep its terms.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the President Mahinda Rajapaksa could have then said\nthat Sri Lanka is no more bound by the India Sri Lanka Accord signed in\nAugust,1987, and the 13A would be removed from the Constitution.  This is\nthe mistake on which Abraham Sumanthiran of TNA  now play and  the\nSunday Times reports that :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abraham Sumanthiran told the Sunday Times<\/em>, It would be\nthe biggest mistake if the Government abolishes 13A. It is based on a bilateral\nagreement signed with India. This was signed to provide solutions to issues of\nthe Tamils. We understand sections in the government are campaigning to abolish\n13A which provides for the Provincial Council. That would be a grave error the\nGovernment will be making. TheProvincial Council system in the North and East\nwas non-functional for a long period, but in the other provinces the PC system\nwas working. In the other provinces, there have been no calls for the abolition\nof the Provincial Councils. We will totally oppose any move by the Government\nto scrap 13A and the Provincial Council system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bilateral agreement  signed with India Sumanthiran\nspeaks of, is now not a legal document.  It is  not valid anymore and\nthe 13th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution can now be removed from the\nConstitution. That cannot be contested neither by TNA, nor by India.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore Mr. President please remove the 13the Amendment from\nthe Sri Lanka Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S . Perera When the people had sanctioned the removal of UNP  from  Parliament , there was no reason to keep 19A any more in the Constitution. It was introduced by Maithreepala Sirisena- Ranil Wickramasinghe duo on the19th April,2015, by Ranil Wickramasinghe to remove the executive powers of the President and make the Presidency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106330","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=106330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}