President’s Office makes ‘special announcement’ amid public outcry

By Dharisha Bastians

In what was widely seen as an eleventh hour attempt at damage control, the Presidential Media Division issued a “special announcement” yesterday, claiming that the President had sought the opinion of the Supreme Court on the question of the duration of his term in office in order to “dispel confusion”. 

According to the announcement released by the PMD last evening, which came after hours of public submissions before the country’s apex court from 11.00 a.m. yesterday, two different views had been expressed in legal, civil and political circles about the duration of the term of Presidency after the enactment of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. 

“In order to dispel this confusion, the President has sought the opinion of the Supreme Court regarding the actual term of office,” the special announcement explained. 

The statement added that according to the powers vested on the President under the Constitution, the President had the right to seek the opinion of the Supreme Court. “The former Presidents who held office had also sought the opinion of the Supreme Court during their tenures. It is a significant feature in the constitutions of democratic governance,” the PMD special announcement said. 

Despite his constitutional right to seek Supreme Court interpretations on questions of law, the President’s move has incited widespread criticism, since President Sirisena swept to office in 2015 pledging to abolish the presidency and boasted publicly after the passage of the 19th Amendment that he was the only sitting president to have willingly given up his powers. 

In a speech in Polonnaruwa on 26 January 2015, President Sirisena told a gathering of public officials that he had insisted on a reduced presidential term of four years, but constitutional experts had disagreed with his position. Finally the decision was that the term would be reduced to five years, he told the gathering at Thopawewa Central College. 

“I participated in a meeting about this matter recently, and said my term was six years, and this should be shortened to four years. On my strong insistence the experts agreed to make the six-year term a five year term,” he said. 

“Now six years has become five. To go home in five years – that is my policy,” President Sirisena said in January 2015. 

Social media has erupted with criticism of President Sirisena over the past several days, after the Supreme Court gave notice that it would hear public submissions on the question referred to the court by the President on when his term ends, with many seeing it as an attempt to stretch a five-year term to six. One of the greatest accomplishments of the 19th Amendment, which was enacted almost unanimously four months after the 8 January election, was the pruning of presidential powers by repealing blanket immunity for a sitting president and reducing a presidential term of office from six years to five.