{"id":82634,"date":"2018-10-31T15:45:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T22:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=82634"},"modified":"2018-10-31T15:45:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T22:45:30","slug":"speaker-doesnt-have-power-to-convene-parliament-early-former-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/10\/31\/speaker-doesnt-have-power-to-convene-parliament-early-former-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker doesn\u2019t have power to convene Parliament early &#8211; Former Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Daily News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Former Speaker Joseph Michael Perera yesterday said that the Speaker doesn\u2019t have power to convene Parliament, when it stands prorogued by the President.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the Speaker doesn\u2019t have power to summon Parliament for an earlier date than the date fixed in the Proclamation proroguing Parliament. Perera added President Maithripala Sirisena has issued a Gazzette Notification proroguing Parliament and the Speaker doesn\u2019t have the power to summon Parliament when it stands prorogued.<\/p>\n<p>Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga prorogued Parliament at that instance, I expressed my opinion and that can also be referred to,\u201d Perera said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that he doesn\u2019t have any personal issues with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. A Parliamentarian has been appointed to the post of Prime Minister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The President has prorogued Parliament and the Constitution is the supreme document of the people. There is no issue in appointing a member in a party which commands a majority. The government should protect the sovereignty and rights of the people.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Speaker doesn\u2019t have the power to summon Parliament for an earlier date than the date fixed in the Proclamation proroguing Parliament.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"page-title\" class=\"title\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Only President can reconvene Parliament<\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>When Parliament is prorogued, only the President has the power to convene Parliament, while the Speaker does not have that power, former Law College Principal and Constitutional Lawyer President\u2019s Counsel Dr. Jayatissa de Costa and former Speaker Joseph Michael Perera said.<\/p>\n<p>Once Parliament is prorogued, only the President has the power to convene Parliament prior to November 16. The Presidential Proclamation states that Parliament would be convened on November 16, 2018. No one else but the President has the power to change that. Article 70 was substituted by the 19th Amendment and accordingly, the President may, by proclamation, prorogue and dissolve Parliament and now under sub-article 70(3) only the President has the power to reconvene Parliament prior to November 16,\u201d Dr. Costa said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Daily News Former Speaker Joseph Michael Perera yesterday said that the Speaker doesn\u2019t have power to convene Parliament, when it stands prorogued by the President. He said that the Speaker doesn\u2019t have power to summon Parliament for an earlier date than the date fixed in the Proclamation proroguing Parliament. Perera added President Maithripala [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82634","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=82634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}