{"id":43383,"date":"2015-04-24T14:08:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T21:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43383"},"modified":"2015-04-24T14:08:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T21:08:22","slug":"a-pretender-to-the-throne-is-impeachment-the-immediate-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/04\/24\/a-pretender-to-the-throne-is-impeachment-the-immediate-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pretender to the Throne \u2013 Is Impeachment the Immediate Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarojini Dutt<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, with Justice K Sripavan\u00a0 presiding, came down hard on the proposed 19th<\/sup> amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka \u2013 the version that was filed before them by the Government – when they unanimously ruled that the meat of the amendment was unconstitutional and could be done only by a referendum.<\/p>\n

It was the collective wisdom of the learned judges that the proposed stratagem of attempting to transfer the power of the Executive President to the Prime Minister by a mere amendment to the Constitution would be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

In this instance the power transfer would have been\u00a0 to a leader – unpopular within his own party that is a minority in Parliament – not enjoying\u00a0 as the Constitution demands, the confidence of the majority of those in parliament and whose insatiable greed for power remains unfulfilled with numerous and fruitless attempts to capture the crown.<\/p>\n

Commenting on this deceptive manoeuvre a leading Constitutional lawyer said, It does not require even a novice in Constitutional law to understand that this chicanery was a ruse to subvert the Constitution and muffle the voice of the people.\u201d It was a move that would have rolled back history to blunt the blade of suffrage and snuff out the flame of democracy.<\/p>\n

In the Presidential election of January 2015 Sirisena, as Bhadrakumar a respected Indian diplomat analysed, barely scraped a majority of the votes. Many of the 51.2% of those who voted for Sirisena did so, only because they believed he would abolish the Executive Presidency with a Constitutional amendment within the first one hundred days; Sirisena had solemnly sworn to do so in front of a sacred Buddha statue in Colombo.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling an irate Chief Incumbent of the Kotte Naga Vihara, Ven Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera, warned Sirisena when he angrily thundered, People exercised their franchise to make Maithripala Sirisena the President of this country because he pledged he would start abolishing the Executive Powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only on 19 Dec 14 that Sirisena a candidate for the 2015 Presidential election wooed the voters in his printed manifesto, Quote: It is the Parliament which has the powers to amend the Constitution. Yet the Parliament was unable to effect this change for the last twenty years. It is the President who is the leader of the main party that should provide the leadership to pass the Constitutional Amendment with a two \u2013 third majority. For that the President should take the initiative to reach an accord among the main political parties. It is to fulfill this task that I decided to come forward as the common candidate of all the people at this Presidential election\u201d<\/em> Unquote.<\/p>\n

Continuing, Sirisena exhorts the people to vote for him. He goes on to say, Quote: I will pass this amendment without fail within hundred days\u201d<\/em> .Unquote.<\/p>\n

It is abundantly clear from the interpretation of the Supreme Court determination of Amendment 19 that Sirisena has violated the Constitution, held an illegal promise to the people and misguided and misdirected the people of Sri Lanka to vote for him. There is no doubt about it that if not for this unconstitutional \u2018promise\u2019 Sirisena would not have won the Presidential election and he would not be the President of Sri Lanka today. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Not only, analysts say, did Sirisena deceive the voters of the country but his manifesto is stark testimony and evidence to a grave act of subversion, the subversion of the Constitution of Sri Lanka which reflects the will of the people.<\/p>\n

When the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka unanimously determined against the essence of the 19th<\/sup> Amendment it was also a damning indictment on the Sirisena manifesto for the Presidential election.<\/p>\n

If the basis of Sirisena\u2019s threadbare victory at the Presidential election was dependent on an unconstitutional, false and illegal promise, the question arises, \u2018Is Sirisena an illegitimate and Unconstitutional holder of the office of President of the country?<\/p>\n

In a military coup d\u2019\u00e9tat the Constitution of a country is subverted physically by force of arms. When the Constitution of a country is subverted by a manifesto on which perverted document the people exercise their franchise, it has the same deleterious effect as a military coup d\u2019\u00e9tat; they both subvert democracy and violate the suffrage of the people. In political parlance this scenario would be described as a political coup which merits challenge at a political level and an investigation at a criminal level.<\/p>\n

Sirisena was not alone in this political coup. The challengers and investigators can take courage by the ruling of the Supreme Court on Amendment 19.<\/p>\n

On Sirisena \u2018pretending\u2019 the throne he began acting autocratically when he subverted the Constitution of the country further by appointing Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister when that worthy does not enjoy the confidence of the House (Perhaps as insinuated in Sirisena\u2019s much maligned manifesto it was to obtain the support of Wickramasinghe\u2019s party which would then qualify Wickramasinghe to be subjected to the \u2018Attanayake\u2019 doctrine, receiving rewards for support); he again subverted the Constitution by usurping the powers of Parliament by reinstating a sacked Chief Justice and removing from office a \u2018sitting\u2019 Chief Justice.<\/p>\n

The Sirisena administration is running into heavy weather by the day. The election was marred by many controversies not the least of which was what Indian diplomat Bhadrakumar described as the Anglo \u2013 American interference in \u2018choreographing\u2019 the Sri Lankan Presidential election and what Bhadrakumar did not speak of but pointedly alleged by Reuters that India was responsible for Sirisena\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

The Presidential election was marred by angry allegations of unprecedented election fraud in the East and the North of the country with people calling for a 100% audit of the votes cast; this audit has precedence in Afghanistan when the UN was compelled to carry out the audit after the Afghan election of September 2014. The question on the lips of many in Sri Lanka is \u2018How did the voting numbers of 40% at 1500 hrs jump to a near 90% at closing time?\u2019<\/p>\n

The voting issue in the East and the North is compounded, when PAFFREL, a supposedly \u2018independent\u2019 organisation strayed out of its turf by making a statement supporting the controversial \u2018Amendment 19\u2019.<\/p>\n

With Sirisena scraping through at an election on a deceptive promise that is illegal and a manifesto that subverts the Constitution – an argument that would be supported by the Supreme Court determination on \u2018Amendment 19\u2019 – with Sirisena\u2019s subsequent conduct where he allegedly subverted the authority of Parliament, many of Sirisena\u2019s antagonists are of the view that democracy demands that the Pretender to the throne be dethroned immediately by a motion of Impeachment in Parliament.<\/p>\n

It is the view of some analysts that time is of the essence as Sirisena may attempt to dissolve Parliament immediately, making the Political coup of 08 Jan 15 a fait accompli<\/em>; these same analysts say that passing Amendment 19 would be disastrous to the country. Many provisions of the Amendment coming up for voting are not in the gazette that was published, not debated in Parliament and smuggled secretly to the Supreme Court \u2018by mistake\u2019 according to a local Kautsky posing off as a \u2018Constitutional expert\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarojini Dutt The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, with Justice K Sripavan\u00a0 presiding, came down hard on the proposed 19th amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka \u2013 the version that was filed before them by the Government – when they unanimously ruled that the meat of the amendment was unconstitutional and could be done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43383","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=43383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}