Parliament begins debate on modus operandi of constitution-making

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle underscored the importance of developing a stable Parliamentary system and pledged to support the drafting of a new Constitution, when the resolution for the appointment of the Constitutional Assembly was moved in the Legislature yesterday.

 Moving the debate Leader of the Opposition and TNA Leader R. Sampanthan commended the Government for seeking to transform the entire House into a Constitutional Assembly and its interest in drafting a new constitution for Sri Lanka.

 “This is a historic motion the Prime Minister presented in Parliament. The protection the minorities received from Solbury Constitution was removed from the 1972 Constitution. The Tamils need to be given due recognition. So, they rejected the 1972 Constitution, which paved the way for a military conflict,” Sampanthan recalled during his speech in the House yesterday. The war, the octenagarian politician noted, had taken the country backwards 50 years.

 The Opposition Leader strongly reiterated the position of his party, the main Tamil party in Sri Lanka, that there was no agenda to create a separate state in the country.  

“We need to have undivided nation. By drafting the new Constitution, I am sure will find solution for the issues in the country as well as establish rule of law. I humbly request the members of this august assembly to take part in this debate to help draft a better Constitution. I also remind the former President Mahinda Rajapakse his role as a national leader in this task,” added the Opposition Leader.

 Joining the debate, Minister of Science, Technology and Research Susil Premajayantha tabled nine amendments the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was moving on the resolution for the appointment of the Constitutional Assembly.

 Striking a note of dischord, Chief Opposition Whip Anura Dissanayake accused Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of taking things for granted and bulldozing the rights of political opponents. “The Party Leaders meeting is not a wedding ceremony for you to be happy or sad based on the way you get treated. It is a place for us to have policy discussions. But the Prime Minister didn’t allow us to voice our concerns. We can make statements in Parliament or outside, but not inside the Party Leaders’ meeting,” the JVP Leader charged. 

 Dissanayake said that if the sole purpose of the new constitution was to abolish the executive presidency, the current constitution could simply be amended.

The 1978 constitution has already been amended 19 times, the JVP Leader charged. “The JVP has supported the abolishment of the executive presidency from day one,” Dissanayake claimed.

However the JVP Leader said his party was not opposed to drafting a new constitution.

But he insisted that if the Government was not going to allow opposition parties to present their concerns, a draft constitution should merely be tabled in Parliament for other parties to present their suggestions and amendments, he said.

There was no need for a constitutional assembly to draft the document, Dissanayake opined.  

“We will not be kept quiet for a process of drafting a Constitution, and become a stakeholder for namesake. A new Constitution is not the key requirement for Sri Lanka but a new social system. China established the system first and then came the Constitution. This is what took place also in France after the revolution. Russia had the revolution first followed by the Constitution. As a political party we have a separate reading for this future Constitution, which is nothing more than a Capitalist system. So, we will not allow the Constitution to cover-up the peoples’ struggle and social issues,” he added.