{"id":107074,"date":"2020-09-28T15:47:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107074"},"modified":"2020-09-28T15:47:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T22:47:49","slug":"restoration-of-authority-of-the-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/28\/restoration-of-authority-of-the-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoration of Authority of the President"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Palitha Mapatuna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Paradoxically, the contention in some quarters seems to be\nthat &nbsp;<em>restoration<\/em> of the authority of the president to that held\nprior to the 19th amendment to the constitution would&nbsp;<em>now<\/em> amount to\nan infringement of the sovereignty of the people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In any case, the president is directly elected by the\ncountry and, as such, may be seen as the principal repository of the\nsovereignty of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast, parliament most likely would consist of diverse\ngroups with diverse wants and, hence, lack <em>cohesiveness <\/em>to be regarded\nas representing such sovereignty to the extent that the president does.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That this is the case seems implied&nbsp;by the fact that\nthe constitution itself &nbsp;designates the president as the head of the\nstate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early in the term of the previous regime, popular resentment\ntowards that regime seemed &nbsp;evident; results of the delayed local\ngovernment elections (2018) and the <em>extent<\/em> of its defeats in subsequent\npresidential and parliamentary elections confirmed this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An earlier dissolution of parliament seemed in order, but\nwas prevented by the 19th amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ironically, the very legitimacy of the 19th amendment is\ndoubtful; it sought to make <em>fundamental<\/em> changes in the constitutional\nauthority of the president, <em>without<\/em> being subjected to ratification and\nvalidation by the people at a referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless,&nbsp;the position in some quarters today seems\nto be that the discontinuation of those apparently illegitimate changes&nbsp;<em>needs<\/em>\na referendum!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strangely and hypocritically, those who ignored the people\nearlier&nbsp;<em>now<\/em> seem to be saying \u2018let us ask the people\u2019!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Palitha Mapatuna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Palitha Mapatuna Paradoxically, the contention in some quarters seems to be that &nbsp;restoration of the authority of the president to that held prior to the 19th amendment to the constitution would&nbsp;now amount to an infringement of the sovereignty of the people.&nbsp; In any case, the president is directly elected by the country and, as such, [&hellip;]<\/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-107074","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\/107074","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=107074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}