{"id":52696,"date":"2016-03-07T14:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T21:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52696"},"modified":"2018-07-29T16:32:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T23:32:32","slug":"shift-of-executive-power-from-president-to-prime-minister-or-parliament-a-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/07\/shift-of-executive-power-from-president-to-prime-minister-or-parliament-a-question\/","title":{"rendered":"SHIFT OF EXECUTIVE POWER FROM PRESIDENT TO PRIME MINISTER OR \u00a0PARLIAMENT : A QUESTION"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sugath Samarasinghe<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Now that the draft proposal for the formation of the proposed Constitution Assembly is almost agreed upon, I have a question bothering me. I am sure the same may be problematic to others too. This is my problem. At present the President of Sri Lanka who is the repository of executive power is elected through the individual vote of voters throughout the country, some voting for, and some voting against. The candidate who polls 51% or more, is elected to this top position to wield executive power on behalf of the people. Even though 49% of the voters may have disagreed with his election, the entire country has had its say. To be elected President, he requires the votes of the minorities too. Therefore he would represent the most no. of people as could be practicable. Thus he has secured people\u2019s mandate to exercise executive power on behalf of the people. The election of the present incumbent is the best example of this, though he too does not hesitate to violate the Constitution for his advantage when necessary, despite having taken an oath to abide by it! But he is also the head of the political party and of his allies, and his actions are generally partisan.<\/p>\n

It is also accepted that power in the hands of a single person tempts him to abuse, and therefore dangerous. An alternative that is being considered is to shift this power to the Prime Minster, as a possible remedy because he will be directly accountable to Parliament. Now the MP who becomes the Prime Minister is the leader of the political Party that had obtained the largest no. of seats or who can command support of others to be able to form a government. Yet he remains only another candidate who won just a single seat representing a limited electorate unlike the President. Hence, is he qualified to exercise executive power, being a candidate who is elected by a people limited to a particular electorate, more than the person who was elected by the entire country consisting of different shades of opinion and interests? Cannot such power be abused by the Prime Minister too, given the opportunity, a glimpse of which we see in the performance of\u00a0 \u00a0the present incumbent? He is going round threatening dissent opinion, seeking to act arbitrarily.<\/p>\n

The other option is to give the executive power to Parliament. Let us not kid ourselves imagining that this Parliament is of the Westminster tradition. At least many of them are no more than political Kalaveddahs\u201d (courtesy Field Marshal Fonseka)! Some of them jump from side to side depending on the type of personal advantage that may accrue to them from time to time. And now some of them are not even those elected by people, having entered Parliament through the back door. Can they be allowed to exercise the executive power of the people?<\/p>\n

I also do not understand the mechanism by which Parliament will operate exercising the Executive power as a body, especially during an emergency situation where quick decisions become necessary. Thus to me, it appears that people are faced with a Hobson\u2019s choice. Am I right?<\/p>\n

Sugath Samarasinghe<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sugath Samarasinghe Now that the draft proposal for the formation of the proposed Constitution Assembly is almost agreed upon, I have a question bothering me. I am sure the same may be problematic to others too. This is my problem. At present the President of Sri Lanka who is the repository of executive power is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-sugath-samarasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52696","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=52696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}