The UNF government feels that there should be political stability for it to carry forward the peace initiative and believes a mere pledge from the President, who wields enormous power, would not ensure such stability.

The President could at anytime dissolve parliament after December 5 despite her assurance which does not have any legal force.

On Tuesday night, UNF leaders gave final touches to draft legislation that would restrict the President's power to dissolve parliament.

According to the draft amendment, if the president does not belong to the party which has a majority in parliament, then her power to dissolve parliament after it completes one year, could only be exercised if parliament approves it by a simple majority, through a resolution to this effect.

Though the original draft was intended to bring in provisions to ensure cohabitation through a parliamentary committee on national priorities, the idea was later dropped since there were differences of opinion.

SLMC leader and Minister Rauff Hakeem was not so keen on the establishment of a such a committee and he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister expressing reservations. He believes that there won't be adequate minority representation in the proposed committee and therefore its decisions will not reflect the minority point of view.

The relevant section of the draft amendment reads:

(a) There shall be established at the commencement of each session of Parliament a Parliamentary Committee on National Priories (hereinafter referred to as "the Committee"):

(b) The Committee shall consist of such number of members of Parliament as the Speaker may determine, in consultation with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, having regard to the proportion of representation of the recognized political parties and independent groups in Parliament:

(c) The members of the committee shall be appointed by the Speaker in consultation with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leaders of the political parties and independent groups in Parliament:

(c) The Speaker shall in consultation with the Prime Minister appoint from among the members of the committee the Chairman, and fix the quorum for a meeting of the Committee:

(d) The Committee shall have the power to act notwithstanding any vacancy in its membership, and no act, proceeding or decision of the Committee shall be or be deemed to be invalid by reason only of such vacancy or any defect in the appointment of a member;

(e) The committee shall cease to function at the conclusion of each session of Parliament.

(2) The functions of the Committee shall be
(a) to identify Bills and Resolutions of national importance and recommend to Parliament that members shall be free to speak and vote or abstain from voting thereon according to their conscience and free of the restrictions or directions of the Party Whips or independent group in Parliament;

(b) to recommend to the Prime Minister that any member of Parliament be considered for appointment to an office under Article 44 (1) or Article 45 (1) or Article 46 (1) of the Constitution;

(c) to call upon any member to accept such office upon such recommendation being accepted by the Prime Minister.

(3) Where the Prime Minister recommends to the President the appointment of any member to such office, the President shall appoint such member to such office;

Since this arrangement is likely to ensure an overwhelming majority of Sinhala representation from the two main parties in the decision making body, minority parties understandably fear that they will lose their clout.

It is exactly for this reason that Mr. Hakeem urged the UNF leaders at Tuesday night meeting to first concentrate on restraining the President's power to dissolve parliament.

It was then decided to drop the proposal and take it up at a later stage. There was not much wrangling over this as the immediate concern of the UNF was to restrict the powers of the president.

By midnight Tuesday, a copy of the draft bill was sent to the President's House and the president who arrived in the country after a private visit to London is expected to give her observations after consulting party lawyers.

Besides Mr. Hakeem, the high level meeting was attended by ministers K. N. Choksy, Mahinda Samarasinghe and UNP Chairman Malik Samarawickrema.

The proposed amendment to restrict the President's powers to dissolve parliament is as follows:

1. This Act may be cited as the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

2. Article 70 of the Constitution is hereby amended as follows:

(i) by the repeal of sub paragraph (a) of paragraph (1) thereof, and the inclusion of the following new sub paragraph.

(a) subject to the provisions of sub paragraph (aa) and of sub paragraph (d), the President shall not dissolve Parliament until the expiration of a period of one year from the date of the General Election at which such Parliament was elected, unless Parliament by resolution requests the President to dissolve parliament.

(ii) by the insertion immediately after sub paragraph (a) of paragraph (I) thereof the following new sub-paragraph:

(aa) where the majority of the members of Parliament belong to a recognized political party or independent group of which the President is not a member, the President shall not dissolve Parliament unless Parliament by resolution requests the President to dissolve Parliament.

(iii) by the addition immediately after sub paragraph (d) thereof, of the following new sub paragraph:

(dd) Where Parliament passes a resolution in terms of sub paragraph (a) or sub paragraph (aa),

(i) the Speaker shall forthwith communicate to the President the fact of the passing of such resolution by Parliament;

(ii) upon receipt of such communication, the President shall within four days of such receipt issue a proclamation dissolving Parliament:

At the same time the government will also effect an Amendment to article 99 to give immunity to parliamentarians who extend their support to the bill irrespective of their party affiliations. The amendment is as follows:

3. Article 99 of the Constitution is hereby amended in paragraph (13) of that Article by the addition immediately after sub-paragraph (b) thereof of the following new sub-paragraphs:

(c) (i) Every member of Parliament shall be entitled to speak or vote or abstain from voting on this Act for the amendment of the constitution according to his own belief or conscience.

(ii) Any member so speaking or voting or abstaining from voting under sub-paragraph (i) of paragraph (c) of Article 99 (13) or who speaks or votes or abstains from voting on any resolution under paragraph (a) of sub paragraph (1) of Article 70 or paragraph (aa) of sub-paragraph (2) of Article 70 shall not be expelled or suspended from membership or be subject to any disciplinary action by the Party or independent group as, the case may be to which he belongs for having so acted, and the provisions of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph (13) of Article 99 shall not apply to such member and the seat of such member in Parliament shall not become vacant by reason of such act."

At the cabinet meeting on Wednesday Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said President Kumaratunga had asked for two weeks' time to study the draft.

The President in her letter to the Prime Minister has indicated that she had come to know from various sources that the cabinet was to take a decision on the Amendment in her absence.

Having presented the President's letter, the Prime Minister said he had sent a reply saying that the decision to go ahead with the 18th Amendment to the constitution was a collective one.

The Prime Minister has, however, agreed to give her time till September 3 to decide on the matter. A special cabinet meeting will be held on this day.

But ministers Ravi Karunanayake and Rajitha Senaratne were not too happy about giving the President adequate time to decide on the amendment.

The Prime Minister told the ministers that the proposed amendment would fill a lacuna in the constitution, since it was silent when the Presidency and the premiership are held by leaders of different parties.

One senior minister told this column that the Prime Minister clearly explained to the ministers that the objective of this legislature was to ensure smooth sailing after one year in office.

When the President and the Prime Minister are from the same party, such a situation gives the President absolute power to dissolve Parliament when he or she wishes to do so. But when the President and the Prime Minister are from different parties, the President could take a calculated move to dissolve parliament after it completes one year on any flimsy ground. The President could misuse such powers for party political gains. For instance, if the President feels that the UNF government would become popular as a result of its success in the peace process, she could scuttle the whole process by dissolving parliament.

House Leader W. J. M. Lokubandara also spoke at the meeting of the ministers. He said that the government was only trying to give some legal weight to what the President said.

The President recently wrote to the Speaker assuring that she would not dissolve parliament until the ruling party enjoys a majority in parliament.

The proposed amendment to the constitution, too, envisages the same thing.

Minister Lokubandara's argument is sound, but is it possible to take away the President's power part by part?

President Kumaratunga had earlier challenged the UNF government to abolish the executive presidency altogether, instead of restricting the President's power piecemeal.

In the meantime, legal experts of both the UNF and the PA are working overtime to prepare their case when the bill is reviewed by the Supreme Court.

The UNF argument will be that the amendment need not be approved by the people in a referendum because the people have already given a mandate to the UNF at the December 2001 elections to continue in office for six years.

The PA believes that if somebody wants to take away the power assigned to the President, part by part then it needs the approval of the people since she has been elected on a separate mandate.

Whatever it may be, if the Supreme Court decides that restricting the President's power would affect franchise then it would be mandatory for the President to call for a referendum on the matter, under the provisions of the constitution.

Article 85 (1) states:

"The President shall submit to the people by a referendum every bill or any provision in any bill which the cabinet of ministers has certified as being intended to be submitted to the people by referendum or which the Supreme Court determined as requiring the approval of the people at a referendum if the number of votes cast in favour of such bill amounts to not less than 2/3 of the whole number of members (including those not present).

However, the bill will become law only when President certifies it in terms of Article 80.
The PA is likely to form its arguments on the basis that the constitutional power is centred on the President and she has the power to choose the cabinet and sack any minister.

Under the circumstances, it could not be possible to take her powers away piecemeal.
The vote of confidence on the Wickremesinghe government which is scheduled to be taken up on Thursday for debate was put off following a decision at the party leaders meeting.

However, the stand taken by Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapakse on the matter created problems for the PA, especially chief opposition whip Mangala Samaraweera who walked out of the meeting in protest against Mr. Rajapakse's accession to the government's request.

What Mr. Samaraweera tried to press was that the debate should have been taken up in Parliament on Thursday because the Tamil parties and a section of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress had also wanted to show their discontent with the government.

Mr. Samaraweera lamented that they missed an opportunity to bludgeon the government because of Mr. Rajapakse's myopia.

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