{"id":107068,"date":"2020-09-28T15:34:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107068"},"modified":"2020-09-28T15:34:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:34:32","slug":"facilitating-the-introduction-of-urgent-bills-through-the-20th-amendment-to-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/28\/facilitating-the-introduction-of-urgent-bills-through-the-20th-amendment-to-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Facilitating the Introduction of Urgent Bills through the 20th Amendment to the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.) Mr. K M B Kotakadeniya (Senior D.I.G. Retd.) Co-Presidents – National Joint Committee<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Mr. Kalinga Indratissa PC
The President Bar Association of Sri Lanka,
Hulftsdrop Street,
Colombo 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear\nSir,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facilitating the Introduction of\nUrgent Bills through the 20th Amendment to the Constitution <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nGovernment has presented to Parliament an amendment to the Constitution title 20th\nAmendment\u201d which would allow urgent bills\u201d to be brought circumventing the\nexisting provisions that provides for the challenge of such bill before the\nSupreme Court. An Urgent Bill can be brought giving the Supreme Court only 24\nhours to give its opinion on the constitutionality of such bill. The existing\nprovisions gives a citizen an opportunity of challenging such bill within 7\ndays of the bill being presented in Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas just the other day that the Government resisted an opposition call to\nreconvene parliament to pass laws that in their opinion would help combat the\nCOVID-19 pandemic. It was the position of the Government before the Supreme\nCourt that no new laws are needed to prevent the spread of the virus. We\nconcluded a 30 year old war without any new law to combat terrorism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nany existing law is obsolete or a new law is needed in an emergency situation\nthe President has the power to declare emergency overriding, suspending or\namending any existing law or to enact any new law pending approval of\nParliament. When all these remedies are available one cannot understand the\nneed to amend the existing Constitution to prevent the challenge of a Bill\nbefore the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nwe are confident that His Excellency the President will not abuse such\nprovisions, a future government can utilize these proposed provisions\nintroduced through the 20th Amendment to prevent citizens challenging bills\nbrought against the national interest. Whether this attempt to curtail the\nexisting powers of the Supreme Court (to duly consider bills after giving a\nhearing to citizens) is an encroachment of the Judicial Power of the people and\ntherefore a violation of the Sovereignty of the people that will attract a\nreferendum may be considered by the Supreme Court and hence we do not wish to\nexpress any view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However\nwe wish to place on record that this attempt is a blow to democracy and a\nviolation of the inherent rights of the people of Sri Lanka when we think of\nthe possibility of a future government bringing legislation to facilitate the\nMCC agreement to provide the required land to the notorious American project.\nWe also do not consider the proposed changes to give the executive the right to\ndecide on the composition of the Judicial Service Commission, desirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe circumstances we urge the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to intervene and\nensure that these draconian provisions are not included in the Constitution\nthrough the 20th Amendment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.) Mr. K M B Kotakadeniya (Senior D.I.G. Retd.) Co-Presidents\nNational Joint Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd.) Mr. K M B Kotakadeniya (Senior D.I.G. Retd.) Co-Presidents – National Joint Committee Mr. Kalinga Indratissa PCThe President Bar Association of Sri Lanka,Hulftsdrop Street,Colombo 12. Dear Sir, Facilitating the Introduction of Urgent Bills through the 20th Amendment to the Constitution The Government has presented to Parliament an amendment to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-constitution","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107068","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=107068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}