By Saman Indrajith

Local government and Provincial Council Minister Rear Admiral (Retd.) Sarath Weerasekera told Parliament yesterday (21) that the 20th Amendment to the Constitution would restore people’s sovereignty that had been diminished by the 19th Amendment.

Participating in the second round of the 20th amendment bill debate, the minister said that as per the constitutional provisions, sovereignty in the country was in the people and inalienable. Sovereignty included the powers of government, fundamental rights and the franchise. Within the powers of the government came the executive power of the people. That executive power of the people was exercised by the President. The 19th Amendment had reduced the powers of the executive and thereby diminished the people’s sovereignty. The 20th amendment would rectify that and restore people’s sovereignty by unshackling the executive, the Minister said.

“The 19th amendment weakened the executive power. For example, 6.9 million people voted for the incumbent president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Now nearly one year has passed but he still cannot appoint an IGP he thinks fit for the job because of the 19th Amendment. Before the 19th amendment was brought in appointments to all the key positions including the Chief Justice, Attorney General, IGP etc., were made by the President elected by a majority of people. The 19th Amendment vested that power in a constitutional council which had nine members. Of those nine votes, seven were in the hands of persons appointed by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader. That means two MPs elected from two districts exercising executive powers of an entire population. What happened in practice? Opposition leader was R Sampanthan, an LTTE proxy. The prime minister was Ranil Wickremesinghe and we know his attitude. It was those two who made all important appointments. In other words Sampanthan from Trincomalee district and Wickremesinghe form Colombo district exercised the sovereign powers of an entire nation. Is it justifiable?” the Minister queried.

“The Constitutional Council had three civil society members who were not responsible to parliament or people. They were representatives of NGOs. Is it justifiable?”

Minister Weerasekera said that as the one and only MP who had opposed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in Parliament, he was happy to see that the day had come to replace it with the 20th Amendment.