{"id":85026,"date":"2019-01-22T04:49:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T11:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=85026"},"modified":"2019-01-22T04:49:32","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T11:49:32","slug":"sri-lanka-orumiththa-nadu-constitutional-proposals-for-an-ungovernable-federal-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/01\/22\/sri-lanka-orumiththa-nadu-constitutional-proposals-for-an-ungovernable-federal-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka \u2018Orumiththa Nadu\u2019 \u2013 Constitutional Proposals for an Ungovernable Federal State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka Inc (SPUR) MEDIA RELEASE – January 2019<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Society for Peace Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka (SPUR) joins other nationalist organisations in strongly rejecting the constitutional changes proposed in the report recently tabled at the Constitutional Assembly by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe.<\/p>\n

Under those proposals, Sri Lank will be converted from a \u2018Unitary State\u2019, which has an internationally recognised meaning, into a deceptively named \u2018Aekeeya Rajyaya\u2019 or \u2018Orumiththa Nadu\u2019 composed of the Centre and Provinces. \u00a0\u00a0This is a significant deviation from the Tamil term \u2018Otriyatchi\u2019 used in the current Unitary constitution.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the Provincial Governments will be granted extensive executive and legislative powers including those on state lands and finance.\u00a0 The \u2018Concurrent List\u2019 will be weakened or entirely eliminated.\u00a0 The Sri Lanka Police will be split into a National force and nine Provincial forces.\u00a0 This will not only compromise nationwide operations against terrorism, drug trafficking and major organised crime but will also allow separatist leaders to abuse the Provincial Police for their own purposes, including against the other armed services of Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Also included are provisions for two or three adjoining Provinces to merge, subject to a referendum held only in those areas.\u00a0 In addition to disenfranchising the remaining population of Sri Lanka, this would allow the re-merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces to create a mythical \u2018homeland\u2019 as claimed by the Tamil separatist and the pro-LTTE diaspora.<\/p>\n

The proposed Second Chamber, largely manned by Provincial Councillors, will further dilute the Unitary status of Sri Lanka by allowing \u2018peripheral\u2019 politicians, who have not been elected at a nation-wide election, the virtual power of veto over the Central Legislature. \u00a0\u00a0Partisan representatives, particularly from the ethnic separatist parties, will make the country ungovernable and the passage of legislation a recurring exercise in wheeling and dealing.<\/p>\n

At present, the Executive President of Sri Lanka is directly elected by all its citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion or regional interests.\u00a0 \u00a0This allows the peoples\u2019 sovereignty over the entire nation to be exercised by the President and through the Provincial Governors, thereby acting as a counterweight to the separatist features of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 However, under the proposed constitution, a titular President is to be \u2018appointed\u2019 by a simple majority of the \u2018joint chambers\u2019.\u00a0 As the recent events in the legislature clearly demonstrate, this leaves the appointment highly vulnerable to political manipulation, financial incentives and foreign interference.\u00a0 In addition, the executive power of the Provinces will be exercised by the Chief Minister and the Board of Ministers, with the Governors being reduced to the status of a mere figureheads.<\/p>\n

It should not be forgotten that Sri Lanka was able to withstand a three-decade long campaign separatist terror, which saw large parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces under LTTE control as well as well as a \u2018Unilateral Declaration of Independence\u2019 by the Chief Minister of the temporarily merged North-East, due to its strong Central Government and the Executive Presidency.<\/p>\n

The draft Parliamentary electoral system is both convoluted and unrepresentative, with many members to be appointed through party lists rather than by the people\u2019s choice.\u00a0 Apart from being a financial burden due the increased number of legislators, the appeasement of separatist forces is further demonstrated by the allocation of four Parliamentary seats over and above their calculated entitlement to the Northern Province.<\/p>\n

Another suggested amendment is to the wording of the article on Religion, which requires \u2018The Republic of Sri Lanka to give Buddhism the foremost place.\u00a0 The objective of this change can be interpreted as an attempt to dilute this obligation of the State towards safeguarding Buddhism.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the draft constitutional changes are being strongly supported by the United National Party (which has not put forward any dissenting views or alternatives) as well as the Tamil National Alliance and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, with backing from some Non-Government Organisations and foreign powers which seek to weaken the Sri Lankan State.\u00a0 Fortunately, their attempts to convince the public that Sri Lanka will benefit from this hasty and divisive attempt to alter the nation\u2019s supreme laws is already being challenged by nationalist organisations, professionals as well as leaning Buddhist monks.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, SPUR firmly believes that the composition of the current parliament, elected three and a half years ago, no longer represents the will of the people.\u00a0 The Wickremasinghe regime has become a minority government which needs TNA and\/or JVP support for its survival.\u00a0 Its popularity has hit an all-time low as shown by the local government elections of February 2018.\u00a0 While it is agreed that constitutional improvements are required, this task should be left to a future parliament that has a mandate based on the proposals presented to the people at a General Election.<\/p>\n

Hence, we urge the Joint Opposition, the SLFP as well as the patriotic members of all other parties to oppose any moves to abolish the Executive Presidency and dilute the Unitary status of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Dr Dasarath Jayasuriya<\/p>\n

(President)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka Inc (SPUR) MEDIA RELEASE – January 2019 The Society for Peace Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka (SPUR) joins other nationalist organisations in strongly rejecting the constitutional changes proposed in the report recently tabled at the Constitutional Assembly by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. Under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum","category-new-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85026","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=85026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}