{"id":83921,"date":"2018-12-04T15:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T22:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=83921"},"modified":"2018-12-04T15:00:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T22:00:56","slug":"a-textbook-case-for-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/12\/04\/a-textbook-case-for-the-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"A Textbook Case for the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Can the President dissolve parliament in 2018? This is the most crucial question affecting political circles today and keenly watched by all politicians. The Supreme Court has to decide. It is a straightforward textbook case. The simple answer is \u2013 no; the parliament cannot be dissolved before February 2020. However, if the President dissolves it, there is nothing anyone can do. It is a violation of the Constitution, but as long as he is not impeached, he is safe and he will get away with dissolving the parliament unconstitutionally.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean the 19A is any good. Personal opinions about 19A and political clans are irrelevant to a legal decision. Unfortunately, most people airing their opinion have been unable to look at the issue professionally. They are politically biased.<\/p>\n

The fact remains that in 2015 only one MP opposed 19A. That MP was rejected by the voters (right or wrong). Over 200 MPs supported it. This has given it legitimacy. 19A is very much part of the Constitution. Article 70(1) introduced by 19A prevents the President from dissolving this parliament for four and a half years since its convening in September 2015.<\/p>\n

If the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution word to word, it is obvious the President cannot dissolve parliament before February 2020.<\/p>\n

If the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution based on the intention of lawmakers, the President still cannot dissolve parliament earlier than that as it was a widely touted promise and a matter boasted by the then parliament and the president. The President boasted at the UN General Assembly how he took it upon himself to walk to each MP and plead for their support to reduce presidential powers and he succeeded in passing the 19A. The intention of lawmakers cannot be clearer. Just because the thinking of 2015 changed in 2018 doesn\u2019t mean the Constitution interpretation changes. Thankfully, the Constitution doesn\u2019t change so suddenly and sharply as Sirisena\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Even if the Supreme Court goes to first principles of democratic governance, the three branches of governance that exercise people\u2019s sovereignty must be independent. The Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary must be independent of one another. The Executive must not be allowed to dissolve the Legislature just because he cannot work with the majority there.<\/p>\n

Sadly, in the Lankan context, the Executive frequently interferes with the other branches of governance. This makes the Office of the President extremely important. Therefore, the right approach at this juncture is for Sirisena to seek a fresh mandate via a presidential election. The 2015 mandate has elapsed. He not only failed but also reversed and ridiculed his mandate. There is no Constitutional bar on holding a presidential election. In fact, all Presidents seeking reelection called for presidential elections one year before their term ended. Sirisena\u2019s term is five years after 19A. His term ends in 2020 January. However, a presidential election must be held by November 2019. It is just appropriate that he too call for a presidential election a year earlier in 2018. JR didn\u2019t wait till 1983; Chandrika didn\u2019t wait till 2000; Mahinda didn\u2019t wait till 2011 and 2016 to hold presidential elections. At that time the presidential tenure was six years. All of them held it a year earlier. Sirisena must do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara Can the President dissolve parliament in 2018? This is the most crucial question affecting political circles today and keenly watched by all politicians. The Supreme Court has to decide. It is a straightforward textbook case. The simple answer is \u2013 no; the parliament cannot be dissolved before February 2020. However, if the President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83921","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=83921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}