{"id":92760,"date":"2019-09-01T15:45:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T22:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92760"},"modified":"2019-09-01T15:45:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T22:45:52","slug":"sri-lanka-ruhunu-economic-development-corporation-slredc-bill-detrimental-to-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/01\/sri-lanka-ruhunu-economic-development-corporation-slredc-bill-detrimental-to-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Ruhunu Economic Development Corporation (SLREDC)  Bill detrimental to the country"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Attorney- at- Law Premanath C. Dolawaththa filed a petition in the Supreme Court, Case Number SL\/SD\/12\/2019, on 27 August 2019, complaining that the Sri Lanka Ruhunu Economic Development Corporation (SLREDC) Bill, which has been included in the Order Paper of Parliament, is not in accordance with the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has filed the petition through his Instructing Counsel, Attorney-at-Law Nalin Samarakoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dolawaththa, addressing the media, said that the Bill comprises four districts, namely Hambantota, Galle, Moneragala and Matara. The Subject Minister has the right to arbitrarily take over rivers, streams, forests, sacred areas, private lands and State lands. The Board of Directors comprises eight members, four of whom are appointed by the Minister, and one member is the Secretary to the Minister. Accordingly, five out of eight members are direct appointees of the Minister, one of whom is the Chairman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision-making power of the Minister is clearly seen in the fact that the Chairman gets two votes. Another flaw is that the Minister is able to do everything, such as naming and proposing projects in accordance with Section 18 of the Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This Corporation has the power to make money from any person, company or any country, at any time. Accordingly, Article 148 of the Constitution, the financial control, which is in the hands of Parliament, has been lost due to this Bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bill also supersedes other Bills and regulations, giving local authorities the ability to obtain paid services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If such a Bill is applied to other Provinces, the same will be vested in the Minister with the discretionary power over the land.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, the corporation can grant State or private sources, forests and historical places to any individual to carry out a business or project of his\/ her own wish, by acting against the common law. This is also detrimental to the country like the State Land Special Provisions Bill. This affects the sovereignty and national security of the country. This would also create a small separate State and if these Bills were to be enacted in the Provinces, the country would collapse. He further stated that it is not lawful to include this Bill in the Order Paper of Parliament without referring it to the Provincial Councils as it contains lands and projects, which are included in the Provincial Council list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Ceylon Today Attorney- at- Law Premanath C. Dolawaththa filed a petition in the Supreme Court, Case Number SL\/SD\/12\/2019, on 27 August 2019, complaining that the Sri Lanka Ruhunu Economic Development Corporation (SLREDC) Bill, which has been included in the Order Paper of Parliament, is not in accordance with the Constitution. He has filed the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92760","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=92760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}