The country is facing a situation it has never before had to face. Plucking Articles from the Constitution and crying to the Supreme Court without helping to deal with the situation, shows how bankrupt the politicians making a furor are. It is they who are violating the spirit of democracy. This is no time to be holding the law books. This is a time for understanding. Certainly elections must be held. A country has to have a government.
But, this situation calls for looking at the scenario without political bias or political agendas. With the likelihood of Covid-19 continuing for some years, given that Sri Lanka has only 7 deaths, no ICU patients and no serious casualties, the best option would be a staggered election over four days. How that is to be done is the job of the Election Commission. However the Election Commission should not try to do the job of the President, the Health Service or the Armed Forces. It is the President who can decide the date for an island-wide election, not the Election Commission. The EC can only change the polling date of a district ‘due to an unforeseen situation’ (24/3 Parliamentary Elections Act)
The People (via Article 4) is Supreme. The Executive, Legislative and Judiciary are only functioning under delegated powers given by the People.
The President dissolved Parliament by Gazette Extraordinary No. 2165/8 dated March 2, 2020 and declared elections for April 25 and convening of new Parliament on May 14.
Can the President dissolve Parliament – Yes, under Article 33(2)(c) / Article 70 (1), 70(2), 70(5)(a), 70(5)(c), 70(7) as Head of State.
Article 70(6) allows a four month window for the new Parliament to convene.
On March 21 – Upholding President’s proclamation, the EC published Gazette Extraordinary No 2167/19 quoting 24 (1) (a) and (c) of Parliamentary Elections Act fixing polls for April 25.
On April 20 – the EC published Gazette Extraordinary No 2172/3 issuing June 20 as the new date for an island-wide election.
Does the Election Commission have a mandate to declare island-wide polls or do they have a mandate to only cancel the vote for a district and reschedule a date for that district alone?
The Election Commission Chairman by mandate 24/3 of Parliamentary Elections Act can only change the date of a district – not all districts. Therefore, the EC has no mandate to declare island-wide elections on June 20. Technically, he was bound to have held island-wide elections on April 25 as he did not declare on March 19 which district poll he was cancelling and having that district only go for vote on June 20. But using 24/3, he can conduct a staggered election over four days dividing the districts.
Can a Parliament that has been dissolved reconvene on its own? NO, only the Executive President can summon it. Attempting to reconvene without the authority of the President is committing a violation of attempting to usurp powers of the President.
Can the Speaker of the old Parliament reconvene a Parliament that has been dissolved? NO, the Speaker of the old Parliament has no role as Speaker once Parliament is dissolved. He has no powers to reconvene Parliament (Article 42(2)
Does the President need Parliament to approve funding? NO
Articles 150 and 151 allows the President to use the Consolidated Fund and Contingencies Fund to meet Public Finance for which the present Minister of Finance will have to be accountable to the new Parliament.
Does the Opposition have a case to demand reconvening of the old Parliament? NO
We all know the debacles committed under the old Parliament – scores of Bills based without debate/lack of majority/denying people to file FR/and allegations that what was finalised at Committee Stage was not what was passed. The former Speaker has much to answer for. The old Parliament failed to provide compensation for all Salawa victims, all Meethotamulla victims and all Easter Sunday victims. The people have no confidence that reconvening the old Parliament in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic will provide any relief to the people given their record of incompetence and lack of ability to serve the people. Around 97 foreign intel warnings, even giving names of venues and details of suicide bombers resulted in no action to prevent the Easter Sunday mass murder. This sums up the level of incompetence of the old Parliament. Everyone simply passed the blame to the other.
What is the real objective in the Opposition demanding reconvening the old Parliament?
Is it to cancel nominations of March 12 which was concluded on March 19 where the UNP and SJB filed separate nominations. Do they now wish to have nominations cancelled in order to contest as only the UNP? This is likely the main reason for the tamasha over reconvening the old Parliament.
Can an FR case be filed against the President’s Proclamation of March 2? Yes, already Maithri Gunaratne (contesting from Sajiths’ SJB) has filed an FR Can the Supreme Court demand the old Parliament to be reconvened? NO, the Supreme Court cannot force the Executive President to summon a dissolved Parliament. The Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to force the President to summon the old Parliament.
The Supreme Court knows it has no jurisdiction to demand the President to reconvene the old Parliament.
The Supreme Court also knows the President has powers to dissolve Parliament again and set another date for island-wide elections
Is this the time to be plucking Article 70(5) (a) accusing the President of violating it claiming he has to reconvene the old Parliament if he dissolved Parliament on March 2 in view of the time lapse?
Those making the allegations completely ignore that Sri Lanka’s first Covid-19 case was discovered only on March 11 and first death was on March 28.
The Election Commissioner cancelled the President’s declared island-wide election date on March 19 using provision 24/3 of the Parliamentary Elections Act No. 1 of 1981 – but the question is can he cancel the island wide election date?
Isn’t he by this very provision able to only cancel voting in a polling district?
Does the Election Commission realise their faux pas made on March 19?
Is this the time to be quoting Article 10(2) (b) (1) of the Parliamentary Election Act against the President claiming he has violated it because in accepting the Election Commissioner’s June 20 date as island-wide date, Parliamentary Election Act requires polling date to be not less than five weeks and not more than seven weeks from the closing date of nominations (March 19)
Is it really fair for the Opposition to be this unsupportive at such a critical juncture? They are well aware that in any normal circumstances, all constitutional provisions have been followed to the word. It is because of this precarious situation the country and the world is in, that everyone has to think of alternate measures. Let us remind the Opposition, that with no terrorism, no country calamity, it delayed local government elections for almost three years and even went so far as to amend Acts to suit its advantage. This Government has not done any of the questionable acts that the Opposition as Government committed during its rule in the old Parliament.
If the ruckus by the Opposition is simply to cancel nominations so that Sajith will have to say cherio to SJB contesting alone and contest as a UNF alliance with UNP-TNA-SLMC-ACMC-JVP (usual culprits) so be it.
Five years of failures since 2015 and inability to stop mass murder via gun despite warnings is more than enough for people to fear yahapalana handling of a virus.
But, with Supreme Court
petitioned, hopefully we will not see foreign envoys seated to influence the judges as in October 2018 and there is little chance of foreign trips on offer too.
However, without allowing another court case debacle, the best option now is for the President to use Article 33 (d) of the Constitution and consult the health services re impact of people going to vote, cancel March 2 proclamation and June 20 election date and issue a fresh proclamation with new island-wide election date and ask Election Commission to conduct elections over four days. There is no requirement to reconvene the old Parliament and only a fresh island-wide date is being issued with a new date to convene the new Parliament.
The Opposition may feel jubilant that its objective in cancelling the March 9 nominations has been successful; little do they realise whatever bandwagon they contest under this team are dreaming if they think that people have faith to place their lives in the hands of UNP-TNA-SLMC-ACMC and JVP again.
The people will only lose more faith in the Opposition the moment it starts filing FR against the dissolution and demanding the reconvening of Parliament. Leaving all law books, Articles aside, the people were fed up with the Yahapalana Govt and it is high time they woke up to this reality.
By making a political nuisance of themselves, they will only be reducing their vote base further. Of course the bloc vote will not change but with the manner the current President, together with the Public Sector, Health Services, Armed Forces and Police are handling the Covid-19 situation despite immeasurable difficulties, the voters know that if the yahaplana government and its alliances were in power Sri Lanka would be holding the record for the highest Covid-19 deaths in South Asia.
The success of Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 has been repeatedly attributed to the magnanimous efforts put by the intelligence services, all of who were hounded and imprisoned under yahapalana rule and if yahapalana was in power during Covid-19 – people will not need to imagine the situation in Sri Lanka they will be experiencing it first-hand.