Un-common sense
The Vesak week has given the people at least a temporary respite from the needless eruption of a Constitutional crisis that has followed the President's takeover of the Development Lotteries Board from the control of the Minister under whose charge this institution functioned.

The entire episode, from what can be seen at least on the face of it, had not come from any political strategy on the part of the President to trigger events that would result in her much rumoured plans to take over certain other government institutions. Rather, it seemed that the episode sprang from a simple bureaucratic exercise that lacked political wisdom as to the gravity of the consequences that will flow from it - the "fallout.''
Now, ex post facto, the President is making out that she acted correctly under Article 44 of the Constitution, which seems to be the central pivot around which this whole Constitutional crisis is revolving.

The Attorney General has provided unsolicited advice which he is entitled to offer, as the chief law officer of the State. He says the President must consult the Prime Minister especially when dealing with Cabinet functions and subjects because the Prime Minister, and therefore the majority in Parliament, is from a different party.

The President's lawyers, on the other hand, are quoting from a Supreme Court judgment, in which it has been decided that even in a cohabitation government, the President's Executive powers should remain undiluted. But the same Supreme Court has said that there is no such thing as absolute Executive power, or any such thing called 'absolute discretionary power.'

Modern forms of government, anyway, do not bestow Heads of State with Constitutional powers that would give them the right to do things at their "whim and pleasure." Such words were indeed enshrined in the Constitution. Modern Constitutional law rests on the bedrock principle that powers vested in one single individual must be "reasonably exercised."

The Elections Commissioner learnt this the hard way when he tried to carry out an illegal Presidential order. The Government Printer had now been placed in a similar dilemma. While the President enjoys immunity from prosecution, the unfortunate public servants will have to pay the price in court if they carry out any illegal orders from the President.

This legal wrangle has arisen due to an absence of sheer common sense among our political leaders. It is common sense that when there are two differing mandates and there are two parties trying to run one government you can either change the Constitution, (which neither one of the actors involved really want to do) or work together, even if it is within a Bahubootha (absurd) Constitution.

As much as the President was clearly wrong in this instance for ignoring the Prime Minister in decision making, the point has been made on whether the President has been adequately briefed on the Prime Minister’s peace process.

Now, all of this madness is being dressed up with an aura of legal nicety, couched in esoteric Constitutional interpretations. A formula for getting past this impasse must be reached sooner than later, probably the best being that the status quo ante be brought back in which the President gets her share of money from the Development Lottery.
There are bigger battles ahead, for sure. We seem to be sitting on a North-East volcano.

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