Speaker approves House Leader motion to dissolve P’liment

Thursday, 4 June 2015 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

CC members to be presented after Party Leader agreement: PM

By Ashwin Hemmathagama

Our Lobby Correspondent

The special session of Parliament took an unexpected turn yesterday when Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella tabled a motion to dissolve Parliament and received approval from Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa before proceedings were postponed till 9 June to reach an agreement on appointments to the Constitutional Council.

Kiriella took the floor and called on all Parliamentarians in favour of dissolving Parliament to stand up. The majority of members present in the House at the time responded to his call of “get up, get up” to express their desire to proceed to a general election.

Amidst the cacophony, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa acknowledged he also backed the appeal of the members to dissolve Parliament.

The special session of Parliament was to debate the civil society nominations to the Constitutional Council, which the Prime Minister said would be presented to the Speaker as a written agreement between party leaders when Parliament next convened.