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Conscience bill may be dropped

Pathirana ready to defy party
Former PA minister Richard Pathirana said yesterday he would study the 19th amendment and vote for it if he felt he should though the PA leadership has warned of disciplinary action against him if he does so.
The Sunday Times learns that Mr. Pathirana who has been making regular public statements in favour of the amendment had told President Kumaratunga of his stand at a recent party meeting.
She had reportedly warned him that tough disciplinary action would be taken.
Mr. Pathirana said that if disciplinary action was to be taken he would resign from the party.

The ruling UNF coalition appears to have dropped a controversial move to permit members of parliament a "conscience vote" on matters of national importance.
The vote was mooted by the government in a bid to obtain the magical two-thirds majority that is always required for important legislation like amendments to the constitution.

The UNF government sees a series of such laws being necessitated to clip President Chandrika Kumaratunga's powers and to give greater autonomy to the minority Tamils in the north and east.

The "conscience vote" bill was to replace a "cross-over" bill earlier contemplated, which quickly ran into opposition from the fragile SLMC leadership fearing defections.

The SLMC is an important coalition partner of the UNF administration. The "conscience" bill was to accompany the 19th amendment to the constitution which seeks to strip President Kumaratunga of exclusive rights to dissolve parliament after December 5 - a year after the last general elections.

But it was also to be linked to voting on matters of national importance, which would be decided by an all-party national priorities committee of parliament. The UNF has a wafer-thin majority in the 225-seat House and must rely on at least 20 members from President Kumaratunga's People's Alliance to reach the two-thirds of 150.

At a high-level meeting between Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and PA's former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in an effort to reach consensus, Mr. Kadirgamar had argued that the "conscience" bill would pave the way to one-party rule and see the dismantling of the parliamentary system practised in Sri Lanka since independence in 1948.

Mr. Kadirgamar, the Oxford educated barrister widely respected by both sides of parliament, said that given today's political climate and what had been going on in recent years with parliamentarians being bribed with monies and portfolios, the "conscience" vote would end up as an "MPs for hire" bill.

He pointed out that the "conscience" vote should be exercised only in cases where a member of parliament should be asked to exercise his vote on strictly personal grounds such as on religion, and issues like the death penalty. Premier Wickremesinghe has pointed out that the "conscience" bill was aimed at seeking bi-partisan agreement in a terribly fractured parliament where even issues of national importance were decided by the party-whip.

He said the move was a bona fide effort to get parliamentarians to work together rather than work on parochial party-lines. Three other senior ministers, Karu Jayasuriya, K.N. Choksy and Tilak Marapana also attended the meeting.

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