Tagged: SPUR

What is the future of the 13th amendment if the 19th amendment is passed into law?

The 13th amendment was possible only because of the executive presidency. The system of provincial councils which was mooted by the Donoughmore Commission was never implemented under the Westminster model.

Every time anything came even close, it was rolled back or shut down. That was because of the ethnic outbidding which the first-past the post electoral system and the Westminster model were prone to in a society with the cultural configuration and ethno religious dynamics that we had.

It took the stable overarching framework of the Presidential system to make it sufficiently safe to experiment with an intermediate tier of devolved power and large units.

It’s an inauspicious number.  That’s ‘13’.  The Maithripala-Ranil Regime (or Ranil-Maithripala Regime if you will) is in its 13th week.  It’s the worst so far for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the United National Party (UNP).  

First, a proposal for obtaining 400 billion rupees through Treasury Bills was defeated in Parliament. According to some constitutional experts the defeat of this kind of ordinance amounts to a no-confidence motion.  Tradition, thankfully for Ranil and the UNP, is (conveniently) not the strongest suit of our Parliamentarians.  Fortunately too, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), headless (in Parliament), is so confused that it doesn’t know if it is in the Government or the Opposition.  It was left for Dinesh Gunawardena to make the point. Tellingly, the SLFP, the party with the numbers in Parliament, didn’t pick it up.  The ‘loss’ however will not go unnoticed. 

Productive day in Parliament, with the first reading of two amendments to the Constitution that I had proposed, seconded by Upeksha Swarnamali. The 24th, which is the more important I think, is about making Secretaries to Ministries Permanent, and restoring their appointment to the Public Service Commission. I hope that all those who are keen on independent commissions will accept that these will have no teeth if the most important appointments in the Public Service are left in the hands of the Executive.

The other amendment, the 23rd, is to fulfil the pledge in the Presidential manifesto to introduce an electoral system that ensures individual representation for constituencies but makes the whole of Parliament proportionate to the will of the people. I cannot understand why we are making such a meal of this particular reform, since the text as gazetted indicates how simple it is to ensure this. The only question is the number of constituencies, and since the election Commissioner said that 125 would be hard to define, I have suggested that the first election under this system could be for 150 constituencies. He said that reducing the current number to this would not take him more than three months. 

In the light of the proposed changes to the Constitution of Sri Lanka now under consideration and growing accusations of contrived attempts via the proposed new Article 33 to neutralize the applicability of Article 9 in the Constitution that imposes a mandatory duty on the State to give to Buddhism the foremost place and protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)(e), an important question has arisen “ What is the relationship between the State and Buddhism that should  exist in the present day? ”

It is an incontrovertible fact that Buddhism, more than other ideology or religion, has played a singular role in creating an unique civilization and shaping the destinies of this country. Sri Lanka is the oldest Buddhist nation in the world. If not for the continuance of the Dhamma, through the study and practice of it in this country, it is unlikely that there would even be a semblance of pure Sasana in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, or Cambodia. It is in Sri Lanka that the Wheel of the Buddha’s law was truly set in motion with the arrival of Arahant Mahinda with the blessings of that great universal monarch, Emperor Asoka. If this event did not take place in Sri Lanka, the Pali Canon may not have got recorded and the noble doctrine of the Buddha, recited and accepted by the Arahats, at Rajagaha, Vesali and Pataliputta, i.e. three Great Councils of the Arya Sangha, would have vanished into thin air long ago.