{"id":52952,"date":"2016-03-14T16:18:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T22:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52952"},"modified":"2016-03-14T09:15:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T16:15:54","slug":"submission-to-the-committee-of-public-representation-on-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/14\/submission-to-the-committee-of-public-representation-on-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Submission to the Committee of Public Representation on the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles .S.Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Chairman,<\/p>\n

The Committee of Public Representations on the Constitution(CPRC)<\/p>\n

Secretarial Office,<\/p>\n

Staple Street,<\/p>\n

Colombo 2,<\/p>\n

Dear Sir,<\/p>\n

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hesitated to write before on the wisdom of writing a new Constitution to Sri Lanka at the present moment, as I am not quite sure of the independence of the Committee of inquiry.<\/p>\n

However, I send this letter to record my protest\u00a0 on the proposal to write a new Constitution to Sri Lanka at the present time, as there are others who hold my point of view.<\/p>\n

Further more I believe that the present constitution even with its Article on Executive President is\u00a0 quite a satisfactory Constitution.\u00a0 It would be more so after the removal of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A country should not write a New Constitution each time a new Government is formed by a new Political system coming into power.\u00a0 None of the developed countries in the world resort to that sort of a radical change in a country\u2019s Constitution \u00a0with a change of a \u00a0political system.<\/p>\n

It is my opinion that the 1978 Constitution \u00a0should be retained as the permanent Constitution of Sri Lanka, making changes to it whenever necessary, by Amendments. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 1978 Constitution had stood its ground until \u00a02015, and it would serve its purpose for more years to come.\u00a0 There was criticism in the use of the Constitutional procedure \u00a0for the impeachment of the Chief Justice in 2013. There was no error in the implementation of the Constitutional procedure for that impeachment.<\/p>\n

It was \u00a0\u00a0the wrong interpretation, for whatever reason , of the Article 107(3) of the Constitution given by the Supreme Court that raised the contention in the minds of some who were biased against the Previous President that the impeachment was not Constitutional.<\/p>\n

However, if it is necessary to write a Constitution to Sri Lanka it should be done under a popular government of the people. The Yahapalanaya is a wrong word applied to the present Government.\u00a0 It is for all intents and purposes a UNP Government\u00a0 which is determined to carrying out UNP\u2019s own programme\u00a0 without consulting the Parliament or the people, with a false majority it claims to have.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I give below the reasons why a new Constitution to Sri Lanka should NOT be written\u00a0 by the present Government\u00a0 led by President Maithripala Sirisena:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1,This Government proposing to write a new Constitution to Sri Lanka is not a National Government as it claims, which according to me is\u00a0 the modus operandi of the present Government to mislead the people of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

2, There is no National Government in Sri Lanka, \u00a0as the SLFP and the UNP cannot form a National Government.<\/p>\n

3, In 1951 Mr.S.W.R.D.Bandaranayake broke away from UNP as he did not agree with UNP\u2019s capitalist policies and set up a political party of the Panch Maha Balavegaya<\/strong> opposed to the UNP System.\u00a0 Therefore, at no point of time could these two parties-UNP and SLFP,\u00a0 politically poles apart \u00a0form a National Government.<\/p>\n

Those\u00a0 members of the SLFP including the President Maithripala Sirisena in joining hands with the UNP to form a pseudo National Government has turned their back to\u00a0 SLFP Policies conceived by its organiser S.W.R.D.Bandaranaya, to become a part of the UNP System. <\/strong><\/p>\n

4, Therefore the Yahapalanaya Government for all intents and purposes is a UNP government and not at all a National Government. In that respect too this Government led by Maithripala Sirisena has no right to even conceive the idea of writing a Constitution to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

5, No National Government could be formed in Sri Lanka with Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister.\u00a0 He has shown on several occasions, specially during his Premiership under President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2002-2004, that he cannot work in cooperation with any one without imposing his own arbitrary \u00a0manner of decision taking. Signing of the CFA with the terrorist Prabhakaran was a great mistake made by Ranil Wickramasinghe which caused the lost of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u00a0 demonstrated his\u00a0 penchant for\u00a0 arbitrary decision taking\u00a0 when he stated recently in Parliament \u00a0that he will sign the ETCA\u00a0 with India in June this year even if there is opposition to it.\u00a0\u00a0 This government has lost the confidence of the people in its mishandling of several issues.<\/p>\n

This government \u00a0has even failed to \u00a0inform\u00a0 the \u00a0people of the\u00a0 Sea Bridge Tunnel\u00a0 proposed to be constructed between India and Sri Lanka.\u00a0 This government\u2019s actions lack transparency.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister and the Finance Minister did not take the correct decision in the interest of the country when they sponsored the USA Resolution against Sri Lanka presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.\u00a0 This government has also \u00a0taken the police powers into its own hands by appointing a FCID.<\/p>\n

The Judges refuse bail to persons connected to the Previous President who had been arrested by\u00a0 the FCID.\u00a0 This shows that the Judiciary fears to take \u00a0independent decisions.<\/p>\n

6, The Government led by Maithripala Sirisena has acted contrary to democratic norms appointing as the leader of the Opposition a political leader having lesser number of\u00a0 parliamentary seats, \u00a0when there is another united group of opposition parties which has a much larger number of\u00a0 parliamentary seats.\u00a0 That has been done purely to win over the minorities onto its side, which shows the government\u2019s bias in favour of the minorities.<\/p>\n

7, This government has distanced Sri Lanka from its friends who helped in the progressive and rapid development of the country and taken it into the fold of the enemies of the Sovereign State of Sri Lanka. Therefore this government if it is given the responsibility to organise the writing of a new Constitution , will be influenced\u00a0\u00a0 by the enemies of Sri Lanka who helped the terrorists and prolonged terrorism.\u00a0 The people of Sri Lanka has also the fear that this government may be fooled by the enemies of Sri Lanka to include clauses in to the Constitution\u00a0 that may change the unitary status of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Under the above conditions the people of Sri Lanka has no confidence in this Government and therefore it is not appropriate a new Constitution to Sri Lanka is written under the aegis \u00a0of the present Government.<\/p>\n

This government cannot be trusted for the\u00a0 preparation of a Constitution to Sri Lanka in keeping with the historical cultural and religious values of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Furthermore,\u00a0 it is no secret, \u00a0and no body can deny that it was the votes of the minorities that assured the\u00a0 election of \u00a0the President Maithripala Sirisena, and the UNP at the \u00a0following general election of\u00a0 August,17,2015.\u00a0 Therefore, this government indebted to the minorities \u2013Tamils and Muslims, will continue to take decisions in all maters including in writing the Constitution\u00a0 to please the Tamil and Muslim minorities that voted them into power. Therefore,\u00a0 allowing\u00a0 this government to make preparations for the writing of a new Constitution to Sri Lanka will have dangerous consequences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the coming into power of the President Maithripala Sirisena\u00a0 on 9 January,2015 he had continued to act in breach of the Constitution of Sri Lanka .\u00a0 Therefore this government led by Maithripala Sirisena has forfeited its\u00a0 right to replace the present Constitution they deliberately breached\u00a0 to serve their own political \u00a0purpose.<\/p>\n

A Sovereign State is recognised from its majority, and the Constitution of\u00a0 a Sovereign State should safeguard the country\u2019s Culture- which is unique to it, its original religion, language and other national identities such as the National Anthem and the Nation Flag.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>This government of President Maithripala Sirisena has already mutilated the Sovereignty of Sri Lanka and therefore they cannot be entrusted with the writing of a new Constitution to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

I therefore wish to express to the Committee, \u00a0my strong opposition, and my condemnation of\u00a0 even\u00a0 the proposal\u00a0 by the Present Government of\u00a0 President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe to write a New Constitution to Sri Lanka.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yours Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Charles.S.Perera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles .S.Perera Chairman, The Committee of Public Representations on the Constitution(CPRC) Secretarial Office, Staple Street, Colombo 2, Dear Sir, CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS I hesitated to write before on the wisdom of writing a new Constitution to Sri Lanka at the present moment, as I am not quite sure of the independence of the Committee of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52952","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=52952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}