Sunday, June 30, 2019

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Nineteenth amendment: Gridlock or progressive step?




Westminster or prime ministerial system of government, with whatever its weaknesses, has worked well for centuries and well-developed traditions and conventions are available to meet with any situation. We are probably paying for our sins after haphazardly changing a system of governance which had worked quite well in our country for a long time.

By Gamini Abeywardane

The leaders of the United National party which introduced the 1978 constitution described it as the panacea for all political ills of the country since independence. The political opponents of the UNP saw it as the road to dictatorship and end of all freedoms.

All Presidents that came into power after J R Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa climbed on to the pinnacle of power on the promise of abolishing the ‘tyrannical’ executive presidency though none of them stuck to their promises beyond the election date. Instead, they enjoyed the powers and perquisites of the high office to the maximum and also examined the possibility of sticking to it beyond the two terms.

The only exception was Maithripala Sirisena who upon his election tried to deliver his promise quite honestly. Fresh from the victory backed by all forces who wanted to re-establish democracy and give the Parliament and the judiciary their due place, Maithripala had no qualms about giving up the massive powers attached to his post.
Probably the reason was, he never contested on his own accord or as a candidate of his own political party, but was handpicked and persuaded to be the common candidate by a combine of all those political parties and the civil society groups that rallied round Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera to topple the Rajapaksa regime.

Amidst massive opposition, pandemonium in the Parliament and constitutional snags, Maithripala could only go half way in terms of delivering his promise of abolishing the executive presidency. The balance part in terms of the Supreme Court determination was not possible without holding a national referendum.

The nineteenth amendment as such, was the maximum he could have gone, however honest he would have been in his attempt to deliver his promise. Ironically enough even he seems to be now regretting over going that far. He now tells the country that nineteenth amendment is the reason for the mess we are in today ---the scuffle between the Premier Wickremesinghe and him as well as other political woes.

At the same time he stated that the eighteenth amendment almost created an absolute monarchy and there was great need for a change. It is an admission that the nineteenth amendment, despite its faults, was a progressive step. However, at last he seems to find fault with both eighteenth and nineteenth amendments.

Indirectly, the suggestion is that it is better to change the nineteenth amendment before the next presidential election in order to prevent a recurrence of a similar situation in the future. That seems to have some point.

What if the next two elections also produce a President and a Prime Minister who will pull in two different directions? By nature of the nineteenth amendment the holders of the two posts will enjoy some sort of equal power and the worst is if the presidency and the premiership go to two different political parties.

Such a scenario is not impossible particularly in the current context of confusion and chaos with no party or individual in politics considered exceptionally popular. Then, the only option will be to go on for another four and half years as the President under the nineteenth amendment will have no authority to dissolve Parliament before such time.

Consensus
It is only the consensus among political parties that can resolve such an issue in a democracy. However, our experience is that consensus on such a major issue is never possible in our system where the greed for power and perks overtakes national interest.
That way the country has no other option than tolerating all the ills of the Constitution and the system until some party obtains two thirds majority in the Parliament which is again a near impossibility under the prevailing proportional representation system.

Thus the possibility is for the nineteenth amendment in the present form to remain a part of the Constitution whether one likes it or not. All this would have been avoided if the process to draft a new Constitution that began in the Parliament several years ago had seen its fruition.

A major part of the work in that regard has been already done, but it is not possible to go ahead with it in the prevailing political climate. It is also unlikely that a future government will be able to revive that process and continue with it from where it has been stopped.

However, with date for Presidential elections fast approaching there is no time for debate over any such things and inevitably the matter will be left to the next President and the Parliament to resolve.

So the likelihood is that there will not be any possibility for a totally new Constitution, but piecemeal changes may be introduced from time to time depending on the outcome of each election. We will have to live with each amendment for some time to see how workable they are.

Future politics will be complicated with unexpected issues coming up because of the friction between Parliament and the President. The reason is there are no conventions or precedents in our system because we are still experimenting with our presidential form of government.

Judicial interpretation
The only hope in this regard can be the judicial process which will be able to play a decisive role in interpreting the provisions of the Constitution as happened in the recent judgments of the superior courts in the unsuccessful attempt to dissolve the Parliament.

The matter can also get resolved to some extent if the next government gets a clear majority in the Parliament. Still there is a greater possibility that many of the matters of friction among the various agencies of the government will end up in courts and that can be one way of resolving some of these issues once and for all.   

A Constitution like any other system has to evolve and maybe we are going through this evolution. Further amendments or judicial interpretations will become necessary to overcome every obstacle that we may confront on the path of our constitutional development. The country’s courts will have a definite role to play in it.

Westminster or prime ministerial system of government, with whatever its weaknesses, has worked well for centuries and well-developed traditions and conventions are available to meet with any situation. We are probably paying for our sins after haphazardly changing a system of governance which had worked quite well in our country for a long time.



1 comment:

  1. A lucid analysis of the current political situation in the context of the Constitutional gridlock. I think that the writer is correct when he states that a Constitution like any other system has to evolve and maybe we are going through that evolution. Let us hope that the evolution will not be agonizingly long!

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