By Nihal Jayawickrama –

Dr Nihal Jayawickrama

It has been reported that the Government proposes to introduce a Bill to amend the Constitution for the purpose of bringing Article 83 into conformity with the amendments made by the 19^th Amendment to Articles 30(2) and 62(2).  Since this proposal is wholly unnecessary, and makes no sense whatsoever in constitutional terms, it may be necessary to look beyond the obvious for some less discernible, perhaps more sinister or Machiavellian objective.

The 1978 Constitution provided in Article 30(2) that the President of the Republic shall hold office for a term of six years. It provided in Article 62(2) that unless sooner dissolved, every Parliament shall continue for six years from its first meeting. Article 83 contains a list of 13 Articles (including it) which can be amended only if, following a vote in favour of not less than two-thirds of the whole membership of Parliament, the Bill is also approved by the people at a Referendum. Among these entrenched Articles are 30(2) and 62(2), but Article 83 becomes operative only if an amendment seeks to extend the term of office of the President, or the duration of Parliament, to over six years.

Following the presidential election of 2015, Parliament enacted the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution. The Bill that was presented by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, following approval by the Supreme Court, sought to amend Article 30(2) to reduce the term of office of the President to five years, and to amend Article 62(2) to reduce the duration of Parliament to five years. That Bill received the support of all the Members of Parliament except one. Article 83 was not sought to be amended since the Bill’s objective was to reduce, not extend, the President’s term of office or the duration of Parliament beyond six years.

Nine years later, without any issue having been raised by the Supreme Court or by any other court or tribunal, or in Parliament, or in any other forum, the Government proposes to amend the Constitution for the sole purpose of replacing the words “six years” in Article 83 with the words “five years”. WHY?

The Supreme Court has thrice affirmed (the third being only last week) the legitimacy of the 19^th Amendment. Why then is the Government attempting to set in motion a parliamentary debate followed by a national referendum (the latter at a cost of at least ten million rupees and a massive disruption of public services) a few weeks before the equally expensive and equally disruptive presidential election scheduled for September or October this year?

In the absence of any rational explanation, one is entitled to speculate on whether there could be some devious, deceitful or self-serving objective. Could it be the expectation that at the committee stage, an amendment would be moved to achieve linguistic uniformity not by replacing the words “six years” with “five years” in Article 83, but by replacing the words “five years” with “six years” in Articles 30(2) and 62(2), thereby restoring the 1978 Constitution to its original form? That will not require to be approved by the people at a referendum, but only the affirmative votes of two-third of the parliamentary membership.

If that is the hidden agenda, it will not only save the government the enormous cost of a referendum but may also provide the Members of Parliament elected in 2020 with an additional year in office.  Whether it will provide the President, who was elected by Parliament to “hold office only for the unexpired period of the term of office of the President vacating office” (Article 40) to continue in office for an additional year may need to be determined by the Supreme Court, having regard to the fact that his predecessor who fled the country in 2022 was elected in 2019 to serve a term of only five years.