Editorial

After a false start on the all but forgotten Republic Day (May 22), the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) eventually submitted the 20th Amendment to the Constitution (20A) on Friday to the Speaker of Parliament.

One can only hope the 20A which is introduced as a Private Member’s motion will not end up like the Impeachment motion of yesteryear which seems to have gone missing from Parliament Records (please refer to our page 1 story).

Presented sans much fanfare, the Amendment is meant to change a whole system of government at the very apex of the country’s politics.
Much talked about over the years, and an election promise at every Presidential and Parliamentary election since 1994, only to be broken each and every time, 20A seeks to return the country to a virtual Parliamentary democracy from the Executive Presidency that exists today.

That the JVP is introducing the 20A Bill is intriguing, to say the least. Especially so when there is an all-party parliamentary committee studying a new Constitution. In the murky world of Sri Lanka’s politics, there is reason to suspect some hidden agenda behind what would, and should, be an altruistic move to fulfil an election pledge solemnly given to the people who voted this Government in. Though not in the Government, the JVP has been lending its support from the outside to it at times, and was one of the parties of the rainbow coalition that campaigned to oust the previous Government. Doing away with the Executive Presidency, long associated with authoritarianism bordering on dictatorship, was among the major battle cries of that coalition.

The 20A seeks an Indian-style election of the next President – by Parliament. The existing powers of the Executive Presidency will be clipped and the President will be dictated to “on the advice of the Prime Minister” on many things where he currently only needs to consult the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, will now be designated the Head of Government, and will, for all intents and purposes, be an Executive Prime Minister like (s)he was prior to 1978.

From the time Prime Minister J.R. Jayewardene mooted the Executive Presidency and became the first Executive President of Sri Lanka in 1978, there have been its detractors and endless debates, both in favour of the system, and against it. Ironic as it turns out to be, those who got on the streets at the time it was introduced and swore they would lay down their lives to have it abolished, are today its vehement proponents saying they are prepared to die to defend it and see it continues.

The United National Party (UNP), having institutionalised the Executive Presidency, has taken up the official position that it wants the system reversed to a Parliamentary system. Many suspect the JVP is acting as a proxy in the exercise, as the UNP does not want to be the party that undid what it instituted. Such a suggestion, the JVP would say, is preposterous and that it is acting on its own free will.

The proponents of abolishing the Executive Presidency say that the system has failed. The main reason they attribute to that is the concentration of power in one person who is Head of State and Head of Government, and is of one political party subject to the bias of parochial political interests. 20A says the future President cannot be a leader of a political party. To some extent, those executive powers did affect individuals who were politicians one day and the next day transformed to a strange hybrid; part man (or woman) and part God.

They inevitably tended to go on ego trips with the ‘hurrah’ boys and girls egging them on, insulating them from the real world until they came crashing back to earth. Some believed they were Roman Emperors or Napoleans, some ancient Lankan king, and even wanted a special throne made for them. Some demanded they be called “His Excellency” or “H.E.”, and had state radio and television begin their newscast with those words and utter something these modern ‘monarchs’ would have deigned to do for that day.

Almost all Presidents did not have strong offices as an Executive Presidency requires. Even the first President did not set the trend. As all power flowed from his Secretariat, there was much to be desired from his senior staff who handled all that power; few and far between were his advisers who could recalibrate the wrong path the President was taking. There was hardly a connecting link between Parliament and the President even though the President has a room in the House premises.

An early case in point was when the then Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon telephoned the President and was asked by the secretary what it was about, only to be told it was none of his business. The episode developed into a constitutional crisis between the Executive and the Judiciary resulting in the eventual resignation of the Chief Justice in the face of a Parliamentary inquiry against him. A later President used rubber-stamping MPs of his party to have a Chief Justice impeached.

A Parliamentary democracy is no guarantee against such power surges that are witnessed periodically from an Executive President. Independent Sri Lanka has seen the life of Parliament extended both by a Parliamentary democracy (1975-77) and an Executive Presidency (1983-90). It is the same difference. If there is a will, there is a way to subjugate the democratic process.

The recent argument in defence of the Executive Presidency is also a strange one. It is based on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (13A) which established the Provincial Council system. The reasoning is that an Executive Presidency stands as a bulwark against moves by a future council that wishes to secede from the rest of the country, and the ‘F’ word — federalism. This bogey has re-emerged to keep the Executive Presidency in power and in place.

But India, which in fact already has federalism with state governments, has a Parliamentary system and safeguards in its Constitution to thwart any such moves. States can be placed under Presidential Rule on the advice of the Prime Minister at the Centre. The same can be done in Sri Lanka.

Equally strange is the way 20A is being introduced. When something as fundamental as a change in the system of government is being done, and when customarily this requires maximum transparency, 20A is being almost surreptitiously brought through a back door Private Member’s motion. Surely, these are games being played in the corridors of power with each political party only seeing the benefits that will accrue to it at the next election rather than the long-term interests of the country.

As for the ordinary people of this country, neither system will bring down the price of fuel nor avoid the floods. “For forms of government let fools contest’ was the famous quote of Alexander Pope. “That which is best governed, is best”.