{"id":150635,"date":"2015-09-12T11:07:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T05:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=150635"},"modified":"2015-09-18T19:29:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T13:59:09","slug":"the-19th-should-be-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-19th-should-be-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"The 19th Should Be Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Much has been said of the jumbo cabinet of the Maithripala-Ranil Government and the choices made by the decision-makers. There\u2019s been hardly any cheering apart from the appointees and their supporters. The leaders have to pick from those available, this is true. However, it was they who nominated them in the first instance. Maithripala Sirisena is clearly the bigger culprit here. Revenge-intent and political expediency were clearly the overriding concerns for he made it possible to smuggle into parliament individuals rejected by the people and if this wasn\u2019t bad enough gave them cabinet posts and other ministerial posts to boot.<\/p>\n

One might have thought that saner counsel would prevail in nominating people to the Constitutional Council<\/span><\/a>, but no, two of the \u2018civil society\u2019 nominees are compromised on several counts. Radhika Coomaraswamy<\/span><\/a>, over and above her role in various anti-Sri Lanka moves including the attempt to have the pernicious R2P (Responsibility to Protect) mechanisms applied here, suffers from a serious integrity deficit. She deliberately sat on a report of alleged human rights violations<\/span><\/a>, perhaps in order to get Government clearance for a plum UN post. Worse, she claimed \u2018she could not remember\u2019. All of this is in the public domain. His pioneering work in Sarvodaya notwithstanding, Dr A. T. Ariyaratne<\/span><\/a> is a mixed-bag. In addition to the natural impediments of age, his preferences in appointments have raised questions about judgment.<\/p>\n

\"Radhika-Coomaraswamy\"<\/a>In addition, the integrity of other members, all Parliamentarians with some ex-officio appointments, will always be suspect given the now apparent slavishness to leader that is the price extracted for membership. The 19th Amendment<\/span><\/a> was flawed in this respect. One has to be an optimist of the extreme kind to expect this lot to deliver something that can balance off the excessive powers of the Executive Presidency.<\/p>\n

Choice and suitability are, sadly, just surface issues here. The bigger issue is the constitution itself and in particular the 19th Amendment, at least with respect to cabinet appointments.<\/p>\n

The 19th Amendment allows for a maximum of 30 Cabinet Ministers. Forty more comprising of Deputy Ministers and State Ministers can be appointed. If a single party\/coalition obtains the minimum 113 seats for a majority, at least 42 will be just ordinary members (assuming that the 43rd would be the Speaker). So more than one-third would be unhappy. This was the norm way back when but things have changed; getting elected is not enough, people want ministries.<\/p>\n

A \u2018national government\u2019 solves the leaders\u2019 problems. He\/she can say \u2018have to accommodate guys from the other party, I am helpless\u2019. That\u2019s a legitimate out. Indeed, all MPs of the winning party can be given ministerial posts (19th Amendment 46(4), which allows Parliament to approve a number beyond the \u201930\u2019 legislated under 46(1)a and 46(1)b. It would seem, then, that a less than 113 outcome is, paradoxically, necessary for the alleviation of that kind of headache. Party leaders\u2019 headaches however are their business. Someone could say \u2018It\u2019s a good headache to have\u2019.<\/p>\n

The problem with such an outcome is that the 19th Amendment does not allow for the kind of \u2018national government\u2019 Ranil and Maithri have put together. Article 46 (5) defines \u2018National Government\u2019: \u201cA Government formed by the recognized political party or the independent group which obtains the highest number of seats in Parliament together with the other recognized political parties or the independent groups\u201d. It does not say \u2018any other\u2019, which would have made this Cabinet legitimate. Of course neither does it say \u2018all other\u2019 (which would have made this Cabinet illegitimate). The wording is vague and shows carelessness and incompetence.<\/p>\n

The common sense definition of \u2018national\u2019 as opposed to \u2018coalition\u2019 (which is what we have and which can be called anything, \u2018Unity Government\u2019, \u2018Strange Bedfellows\u2019 or \u2018Colombo Knight Riders\u2019) implies an all-encompassing entity. There could be no \u2018Opposition\u2019 in such an arrangement.<\/p>\n

This brings us to the other examples of carelessness in the Amendment. The Leader of the Opposition is mentioned but the appointment and removal are not clarified. This was missing in the 1978 Constitution as well. The current confusion in and about \u2018the opposition\u2019 has as much to do with Maithripala\u2019s machinations as with constitutional flaw.<\/p>\n

As things stand, therefore, we can conclude that this jumbo cabinet\u2019s principal problem is not size but legality. There\u2019s an at least 50-50 chance of it being illegal (court determination will be required and let\u2019s not bet on that, shall we?).<\/p>\n

So what do we have? A half-way legal set of ministers and deputy ministers whose other-than-constitutional legitimacy leaves much to be desired and a Constitutional Council of misfits and slaves to leaders’ whims. We cannot expect statesmanship from them. The 19th needs to be revisited. The entire constitutional needs to be revisited. And even if such were decided we have a bunch of nitwits doing the re-visitation. Not a happy state of affairs, certainly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":137374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 19th Should Be Revisited - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-19th-should-be-revisited\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 19th Should Be Revisited - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-19th-should-be-revisited\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-12T05:37:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-09-18T13:59:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Malinda.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"279\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"356\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-19th-should-be-revisited\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-19th-should-be-revisited\/\",\"name\":\"The 19th Should Be Revisited - 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