TNA MP says 20A step in wrong direction

• Sumanthiran say people did not give mandate to President to strengthen Executive Presidency
• Says democracy messy, costly and time consuming in its deliberations but is best path for the country 

TNA Jaffna District MP M.A. Sumanthiran told Parliament on Thursday that the 20th Amendment to the Constitution is a step in the wrong direction for the country, and warned that it would take the country towards autocracy.

“The people of this country did not give a mandate to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to strengthen the Executive Presidency. The mandate was given to do away with the 19th Amendment which had problems. Those problems have to be identified, and they ought to have been corrected. You do not have to go in reverse gear, you do not have to travel in the opposite direction of democracy towards the direction of autocracy. That is wrong, and that wrong is done by this amendment. That is why we oppose it,” Sumanthiran said during the debate on the 20 Amendment to the Constitution on Thursday.

He said that of the “20 amendments that came to this House and affected the Constitution,” there were two amendments that had more than 200 members voting for them.

“That was the 17th amendment which was passed here with one member abstaining and the 19th Amendment that had been passed with only one-member voting against it,” he explained. “Sarath Weerasekera voted against it. Although I do not agree with his standpoint then and today, I should respect Sarath Weerasekera for his consistency he had shown in opposing the 19th Amendment then and now. The others cut very sorry figures here today, having raised their hands for propositions that are diametrically opposite, in opposite directions.”

The TNA MP said that when the 17th and 19th Amendments were passed, the whole House voted for them because those Amendments had the total approval of people of this country, and their opinion was that this country must remain democratic. This, he said, was not the case with other amendments brought to the House.

“Messy as it is, democracy was chosen. But that was the right path. Democracy is messy, costly and time consuming in its deliberations, but that is the path that we should take. I vividly remember the discussions we had in and outside the Chamber and how the committee stage dragged till midnight with the then Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe leading us through, explaining the content of that bill. So many amendments were moved from the opposition side by Dinesh Gunawardena, Prof. Tissa Vitharana and Vasudeva Nanayakkara. All but one got together and agreed to those amendments. I agree that the incumbent Justice Minister quoted me as saying that I conceded that there were problems with the 19th Amendment.”

Sumanthiran agreed that the 19th Amendment has some snags. “The 19th Amendment was the first step in the process towards abolishing the Executive Presidency. There had been a consensus in this country since the mid-1990s to abolish the Executive Presidency. For a quarter of a century, the country had repeatedly granted mandates to remove the Executive Presidency. The 19th Amendment created two centres of power as it reduced some powers of the Executive Presidency. But that was only a temporary measure because it was meant to move forward towards democracy.”