President may face impeachment

By Victor Ivan

She handed over all administrative powers, though unwillingly, retaining for herself the position of Commander-in-Chief only. If, on the other hand, had she tried to vaunt her powers before the victorious opposition, it would have led to a situation where people would be forced to take to the streets. The warning given by some UNF spokesmen that a million people would be summoned to Colombo in protest if the President kept for herself the Ministry of Defence might have had contributed to the flexibility shown.

However, this retreat of the President cannot be anything more than a tactical retreat. 

The cobra has gone into its hole with his hood folded but it can come out of the hole at any time and attack. The PA has lost its Parliamentary power and the power of internal administration only. The Presidential power is still with the PA. The powers of the Provincial Councils and of the village level Development Councils too are still with the PA. The strategy of the PA is to retreat and wait until a suitable occasion arises. The President too appears to believe that she would be able to come back to the central arena on the basis of complicated situations that might arise in relation to the ethnic issue.

The victorious party too does not appear to be satisfied with getting for itself the administrative power leaving the executive power in the hands of the opposition. That it did not go into a conflict with the President soon after its victory reveals its strategy that it must strengthen itself before going into any conflict.

At the Presidential Election of 1999, the President was elected for a period of 6 years. However, the defeat at the recent election annuls the mandate that she had got in 1999. 

If she, at the recent Parliamentary election, had not led the PA's election campaign, she could have claimed that the people had not defeated her although they had defeated her party. However, at the Parliamentary election she led the PA's election campaign and converted that election into a contest between the UNF and herself. At the election campaign the UNF's main item of controversy, too, was the President. Although, in that sense, the people have, at this election, annulled the mandate that they had given to the President at the 1999 Presidential election, she has not given up her post. Accordingly, a situation has come up in which a leader rejected by the people remains a holder of executive power.

Although she has handed over internal administrative power to the victorious opposition, she still functions as the chief executive of the state and as the Commander-in-Chief of the three armed forces. In addition to all that, she is maintaining an armed group of thousands of persons equal to a private army on the pretext that they are needed for security. She has the power to issue orders to any officer or department and also the power to dissolve the Parliament after completion of one year. Although in the present political environment she does not use this power, there is no guarantee that she will not use it in the event of a crisis situation.

Finding a peaceful solution to the ethnic issue appears to be item number one in the agenda of the new government. However, the new government cannot go in for peace talks with self confidence at a time when the executive power is in the hands of the President who belong to a different party. Therefore the government appears to be compelled to conclude that the President should be made powerless before everything else.

The main constitutional means of making a President powerless is to bring a motion of impeachment against the President and to see that it succeeds. For this purpose there must be a sheet of serious charges which can be proved. In addition to that it must get the support of two-thirds of the members of Parliament. Even if both those conditions are fulfilled, the Supreme Court has the power to annul an impeachment even when all the necessary conditions are fulfilled. The Supreme Court is headed by a person whose appointment has been challenged in the very court. The Chief Justice is a presidential appointee as per the constitution. Therefore, before an impeachment motion against the President is tabled, it will be essential to impeach the Chief Justice.

Although the UNP when in opposition tabled an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice, the Parliament was unable to hold an inquiry into it due to various crises that arose in Parliament. 

The UN Human Rights Commissioner had requested the government of Sri Lanka to keep the Chief Justice away from election related cases on the grounds that the Chief Justice did not refrain from cases where he had some interest but exhibited his partiality towards the executive by allegedly following a policy of controlling such cases to the advantage of the PA.

Although the victorious party had expected that the Chief Justice would give up his job after the PA's defeat at the election, he did not do so. As a result, an impeachment against the Chief Justice has become something inevitable before any impeachment against the President.

If the government succeeds in removing the President from her post through a motion of impeachment, the government, according to the Constitution, will have to hold a Presidential election within three months after the Supreme Court's announcement of its verdict.

The writer is the Editor of Ravaya

Cabinet: Curious hodge podge

Then, some who were in the forefront of UNF's campaign while in the opposition-Rajitha Senaratne and Ravi Karunanayake, for example- have been relegated to non-cabinet rank. What is the big idea? There are many theories. Seniority, some say was the criterion in according cabinet rank. That argument does hold some water because Tissa Attanayake gets a cabinet portfolio, when Karunasena Kodituwakku is given only non-cabinet status. And some important portfolios-Education, for instance- are not represented in the cabinet anyway. 

Then there is the conspiracy theory, spoken of in whispers. Those who initiated the revolt against the UNF leader earlier this year have been given a sinister message, they say, by giving them non-cabinet ministries. A glance at some in the list of non-cabinet ministries may suggest that this is true but then, even those who were on the Prime Minister's side in that party revolt are on that list and some who were against him are in the Cabinet too! A more plausible explanation can be offered regarding the allocation of key ministries. 

It appears that men of unquestionable integrity have been asked to supervise ministries where temptations for corruption exist most. So, leading lawyers K. N. Choksy and Tilak Marapone handle Finance and Defence while Karu Jayasuriya gets Power and Energy. That is indeed a relief and we must hope that in this instance, power will not corrupt, because if it can corrupt these men, then there will be little hope for this country! 

But to put it mildly, the country is getting confused with all these ministries, ministers and their fancy-sounding titles and their arbitrary hierarchical classification in the political kingdom. 

Non-cabinet ministers, we are told will not attend cabinet meetings, unless they have business relating to their ministries to be taken up. So, there will be someone, we guess, who marks attendance and notes whether these honourable members have a right to be present at a particular meeting? But then, we have seen sillier things happen at Cabinet meetings, have we not? We have also been reassured that there will only a MPs salary and no perks for the new ministers. 

But won't they have their staff-the whole retinue of private secretaries, co-coordinating secretaries, media secretaries and social secretaries etc? Well, never mind. All we can say is that when a party which was complaining about a forty- four member cabinet appoints a fifty-three member cabinet, the people will be watching them closely. 

As of now, the initial euphoria of victory and the accompanying sense of expectation will dull any sense of resentment. But the new cabinet better perform. Or else, well, we know what happened to their predecessors, don't we?