Editorial
The Colombo Port City
However hard the government tries to claim that it won a famous victory in getting through the legislature the controversial Colombo Port City Bill, now an Act of Parliament following its certification last week by Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the fact remains that the Supreme Court (SC) found as many as 25 of its 74 clauses in conflict with the constitution. This is more than a third of the Bill that was originally presented and has been described as a “stinging rebuke” by critics. The SC held that many of the clauses, if not amended, required a two thirds majority of the House for their enactment; and there were others that required both the special majority plus the people’s consent at a referendum. It goes unsaid that the government will under no circumstances wade into a referendum. If we by some miracle have one, people will not bother about any Port City question that is put. They will vote on whether they do or do not want the incumbent government to remain in office. That is reason enough for any government to avoid referendums like the plague.
As promised, the impugned clauses were amended in line with SC guidelines to pass muster. After that, there was no need for the two thirds majority – which the government failed to get by a single vote – or any referendum. Readers will remember the one referendum we had was when the J.R. Jayewardene government asked the people to vote for either the ‘pot’ or the ‘lamp’ to indicate whether they consented to extend the massive mandate JRJ won in 1977. He asked for authority to continue to hold, without an election, the five sixths majority he won in that unprecedented landslide. That was in 1982 and the then incumbent Parliament got six more years without an election. There were numerous allegations that the referendum was rigged but nothing was proved. But it was as clear as daylight to anybody with eyes to see that the prohibition on the display of symbols was flagrantly violated.
It is true that JRJ applied some whitewash over this highly undemocratic act of canceling an election. He did that by requiring sitting ruling party MPs who could not carry their constituencies when he sought re-election (actually a misnomer as we will presently explain) in 1982 and the referendum that followed some weeks later. The misnomer is that he was not elected president in 1977. He was elected prime minister and was later “deemed” president by his 1978 constitution creating the executive presidency. Even in the whitewashing, there was dilution. Then Finance Minister Ronnie de Mel was exempted from facing a by-election and moved from Devinuwara to Bulathsinhala and no by-election was held at Panadura, out of the fear of Dr. Neville Fernando elected on the UNP ticket in 1977, who later resigned from Parliament following differences of opinion with the president.
We have been told by government MPs that there was a miscount in the parliamentary voting on the Bill and an inquiry of whether this was so would be held. Although there were different tallies, none of them hit the magic 150 number which constitutes the two thirds majority in the 225-member legislature. Voting in Parliament is now electronic and not physical. Gone are the days of voice votes of ‘ayes’ and ‘noes’, MPs standing at their seats for physical counts, or the calling of names where a vote by name is called for. Mr. Dhammika Kitulgoda, a former Secretary General of Parliament had been appointed as inquirer into this matter but had not begun his inquiry as this is being written. However the government’s Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) was called to investigate and a report, not yet published or publicized, had been presented. Readers will agree that if the finding was in favour of the government contention, this would not have been the case.
We run in this issue a call by Mr. Chandra Jayaratne, a former Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce who headed the CTC Eagle Insurance Company when the Ceylon Tobacco Company was in the insurance business, calling for the creation of an Independent Parliamentary Counsel in this country. This institution exists in the United Kingdom and Australia and Jayaratne, a civil society activist sees the Port City Bill (now Act) as a good reason for Sri Lanka too setting up such an institution to carry out the duties now undertaken by the Legal Draftsman. The people of this country will join him is asking how a Bill, with more than a third of its clauses in variance with the Constitution, could have in the first place been gazetted and then presented to Parliament with such defects. It presumably went through the Legal Draftsman, Attorney General, Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet before it came to Parliament. In fact the state-controlled Daily News reported over a month ago that AG had informed the Secretary to the President that “provisions of the Bill are not inconsistent with the Constitution. The Bill is not subject to any prohibitions or restrictions imposed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and may be enacted by Parliament.” Thereafter when the various unconstitutional defects were being pointed by counsel supporting the 19 petitions before the SC, a series of intended amendments were presented.
We are all familiar with the police arresting suspects on Friday evenings so that they can be held in custody until Monday morning without being produced before a Magistrate. The Port City Bill was presented to Parliament in the middle of the New Year holiday season limiting the time-frame open for citizen to challenge it. Nevertheless 19 petitions were filed and considered by a five-judge bench of the SC that made a unanimous determination. Whether the creation of the institution promoted by Jayaratne will make any difference to mala fide acts of governments seeking political advantages, we doubt. Perhaps the Port City will make a difference to the economy of our country. But that is no excuse for attempting to push through legislation that is bad in law.
Editorial
Ensure safety of COPF Chairman
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Editorial
Dead man walking!
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Editorial
Modi Magic on the wane
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.