{"id":115548,"date":"2021-06-26T17:28:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115548"},"modified":"2021-06-26T17:28:15","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:28:15","slug":"dappula-de-livera-called-upon-to-explain-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/26\/dappula-de-livera-called-upon-to-explain-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Dappula de Livera Called Upon to explain: (Part 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

by The Sri Lanka Study Circle<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Petitioner G L Peiris\u2019 Intervention in Court Acknowledging that\nthe Port City Bill was Unconstitutional while Peiris Continued to Assure the\nCabinet, the Parliament and the People that it was Constitutional<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\/Contd from Part 2<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you, Mr. de Livera, a\nwilling accessory to Prof Peiris\u2019 chicanery?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof G L Peiris\u2019 conduct was\nbizarre, to say the least. And, Mr. de Livera, so was yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Peiris was in total\nagreement with your opinion that the \u2018Port City Bill\u2019 was Constitutional when\nhe, along with others, voted in favour of the Bill at the critical Cabinet\nmeeting and continued to hold that view on 08 Apr 21 when the Bill was tabled\nin Parliament and, even thereafter till about 19 Apr 21, the day the Court sat\nto deliberate on the petitions submitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G L Peiris\u2019 volte-face in Court<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 19Apr 21 or\nthereabouts, Prof Peiris indicated that he entertained seemingly serious doubts\nabout your opinion on the Bill; he did a volte-face when he conveyed to the\nCourt, as an intervenient petitioner, that he did not agree with the Attorney\nGeneral\u2019s opinion on the Bill and considered amendments to the Bill vital, to\nprotect the Constitution from being violated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Prof Peiris communicate\nwith you his reservations, about your opinion on the Bill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Peiris came to Court,\narmed with copies of the Bill and the Constitution and a battery of private\nlawyers in tow; it was revealed during the Court proceedings that the Bill had\nseriously violated the Constitution in over 25 instances!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Prof Peiris keep the\nPresident informed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it that seemingly\nprompted Prof Peiris to reverse-course his thinking? When did that mental\nmetamorphosis take place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, was this \u2018change of mind\u2019 a\npart of an overall strategy and were you, Mr. de Livera, a cog in that strategy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important question begs an\nanswer. Did Prof Peiris – the Chairman of the SLPP – keep the Head of the\nCabinet (the President) informed about his \u2018change of mind\u2019 and about his\nproposed course of action?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the President had concurred\nwith Prof Peiris should not the Bill have been withdrawn?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Professor had indeed\ninformed the President, and the President had concurred with the Professor\u2019s new\npoint of view, should not the procedure, that should have been followed, be\nvastly different from the one that was pursued?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should not the Speaker have\nbeen informed, the Bill withdrawn and the matter of \u2018withdrawal\u2019 communicated\nto Court?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramifications of withdrawing\nthe Bill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Bill had been withdrawn,\nwould it be incorrect to say that there would have been no Court hearing and\nthe Government would have been compelled to re- table an amended Bill in\nParliament, incorporating all the amendments and changes as suggested by the\nProfessor?   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those circumstances, would\nnot the people have been afforded an opportunity to challenge the \u2018amended\u2019\nBill in Courts, if the need arose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Peiris deals a\ntelling blow to Democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the light of Prof Peiris\ncoming in as an intervenient petitioner, many ask the question, Was Prof\nPeiris subverting the democratic concept of \u2018Separation of Powers\u2019 and paving a\npath for the Judiciary to encroach on the turf of the Legislature?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was the Professor attempting to\nmute the voice of the Legislature and were you not, Mr. de Livera, an important\nlink in that strategy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Separation of Powers\u2019 is a\nuniversally accepted democratic norm wherein the three arms of Government -the\nLegislature, the Judiciary and the Executive – have been Constitutionally\ndelegated the power of the people, to perform on their behalf, clearly defined\ntasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three arms of Government\nare independent of each other and are coequal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under normal convention, it is\nthe preserve of the Legislature to make and amend laws while the preserve of\nthe Judiciary is to interpret laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a landmark case, John Jay,\nAmerica\u2019s first Chief Justice clearly clarified the role of the Court when he\nsaid, The Court does not give advisory opinions; rather, its function is\nlimited only to deciding specific cases\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Separation of Powers\u2019 is an\ninbuilt safety mechanism for the protection of the people against misuse and\nabuse of their power by any one of the three arms of Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had the Government taken the\ncourse of action, which as constructed in this letter, it rightfully should\nhave, would not much of the debate and argument on the Bill been rightly confined\nto the Legislature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, in the Legislature the\ndebate was restricted to just two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court hearings lasted five\ndays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, would it not have been\nfrom the Legislature that amendments would then have originated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, would not this process\nhave prevented Parliament being reduced to a virtual cut-and-paste shop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened to Sri Lanka’s\nParliament, was indeed unique and sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the exercise of\nwithdrawing a Bill, re-drafting a fresh Bill in its place and re-tabling it in\nParliament would not have taken place in a day or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the people are\nconcerned, the Port City Bill could have waited that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But did those, representing the\npeople have sufficient time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the urgency and whose\nwas the urgency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secret pledges made by\npoliticians to foreign parties in undisclosed Treaties?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global think tanks assert that\nthere has been a recent trend for Governments to make illicit pledges,\nsecretly, to foreign donors; these unauthorised pledges are written into undisclosed\nTreaties and Agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to these\nthink-tankers these donors show a pronounced disrelish for these\nunconstitutional pledges to be made public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Politicians, to fulfil\ntheir criminal pledges to foreign donors and to maintain credibility with them,\nattempt to unobtrusively push these pledges – hidden away in nooks and crannies\nof Bills –   through\nActs of Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were any pledges, contravening\nthe Constitution and made by the Government to foreign parties in yet\nundisclosed Treaties and Agreements, included in the Port City Bill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were their time stipulations\nlaid down in those \u2018secret\u2019 and illegal pledges?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the context of the yet\nundisclosed contents of these Treaties and Agreements, would it be unreasonable\nto conclude that this could well explain the stealth, duplicity and urgency of\nthe Government to sneakily attempt passing the original Port City Bill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. de Livera, were there\nunconstitutional pledges in any of the yet-to-be-seen Agreements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Were any of these pledges \u2018hidden\u2019 away in the Bill that\nwas originally tabled in Parliament?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were any of these\nunconstitutional pledges found in any of the 25 clauses of the Bill that were\ndetermined by the Court to violate the Constitution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. de Livera, could you please\nmake available to the public, the contents of all the Sri Lankan Treaties and\nAgreements between India, America and China since 2009?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the President did not concur\nshould not Prof Peiris have been sacked immediately?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, if the\nProfessor had not communicated his \u2018new\u2019 opinion and his intended course of\naction to the President or if the President, on being so informed by the\nProfessor, did not concur, should not Prof Peiris have been stripped of his Cabinet\nPortfolio, sacked from the Party and booted out of Parliament for his\nirresponsible conduct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Cabinet-Collective-Responsibility\u2019\nis a convention in Parliamentary democracy; members of the cabinet must\npublicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if they do\nnot privately agree with them. If a member of the Cabinet wishes to openly\nobject to a Cabinet decision, then he is obliged to resign from his position in\nthe Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Peiris neither resigned\nnor was he sacked<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Peiris should either have\nresigned or been sacked. In either instance he should not be in the Cabinet.\nBut, in this instance, he continues to remain in the Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this suggest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this not strongly suggest\nthat the President and Prof Peiris had, in cahoots, engaged in some type of\npolitical skullduggery and that you were an integral cog in that plot?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Single-mindedness to surrender\nSri Lanka\u2019s Sovereignty and National Security?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Court determined, in\nno uncertain terms, that the Bill touted as Constitutional by the Government\nwas indeed absolutely unconstitutional, when the Court determined that in eight\nof the twenty-five instances identified as unconstitutional, a referendum was\nrequired and when the Government used devious means to have the Bill\nunobtrusively passed in Parliament with all the dangerous violations to the\nConstitution in place, does it not suggest that the President and Prof Peiris\nwere willing to sacrifice and imperil Sri Lanka\u2019s Sovereignty, Security and Unity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This construct is reinforced\nwhen on the same day, 19 Apr 21, the President\u2019s Secretary, Mr. P B\nJayasundera, also challenged the Bill in Courts, as an intervenient petitioner!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. de Livera, would you admit that\nyou are at the Centre of some duplicitous period of Sri Lanka\u2019s history having\nissued a spurious opinion that the Bill was constitutional?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/ to be contd<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by The Sri Lanka Study Circle Petitioner G L Peiris\u2019 Intervention in Court Acknowledging that the Port City Bill was Unconstitutional while Peiris Continued to Assure the Cabinet, the Parliament and the People that it was Constitutional \/Contd from Part 2 Were you, Mr. de Livera, a willing accessory to Prof Peiris\u2019 chicanery? Prof G […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sri-lanka-study-circle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115548","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=115548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}