Bipartisanship and the constitutional drawing board

Almost three years since the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that removed presidential term limits and consolidated power of the Executive and six months following the unconstitutional impeachment of the country’s Chief Justice, the battle-cry in Opposition political movements is constitutional change.

Conventional wisdom from the perspective of those not in seats of governance is that the overarching influence of the Executive into the two other organs of the State – Parliament and the Judiciary – bodes ill for democracy and the sovereignty of the people as guaranteed by the country’s Constitution.

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution passed into law with relatively minimal hue and cry has come to represent everything that is wrong with the country’s system of governance and reinforced the patently flawed character of the 1978 Constitution.

The dangers of a single individual wielding the enormous powers granted by the ’78 Constitution and strengthened by the 18A to the Executive have recently dawned upon even those most ardent proponents of the executive presidential system resulting in both major proposals for constitutional change currently in the public domain laying a heavy focus on the need to replace it with a more benign form of governance.

Following the presentation of constitutional reform proposals by the Maduluwawe Sobitha-led National Movement for Social Justice, the main Opposition United National Party unveiled its own draft constitution. As the single largest political party in the country, the UNP believes it has the best possible chance to market its reform proposals to the wider polity. It has therefore commenced a consultative process into which it has invited the participation of political parties in Government and Opposition, civil society and the general public.

The UNP-JHU dialogue  on Wednesday has been hailed as being fairly successful. While the two parties are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum on many issues, they appeared to find common ground on at least some of the UNP’s proposals, especially those that deal with good governance and a reformation of the current governance system. There will doubtless be differences on matters such as devolution that the UNP proposals also focus on in some depth.

Discussions are at a preliminary stage and will certainly take many rounds of talks before any kind of consensus can be reached on the salient points. But the JHU decision to sit down with the UNP for talks about the reformation of the political system itself is symbolic of how deeply entrenched the perception that something is terribly wrong with Sri Lanka’s body politic has become.

It also signals hope for the future of constitutional reform that a majority of stakeholders would agree is the need of the hour. If two parties on opposite ends of the spectrum can sit down to seek common ground, bipartisanship and cooperation may not be impossible if the reform proposals are seen as imperative in the national interest. Sri Lanka has witnessed such bipartisanship in its recent history but once, in 2001 when all 225 legislators voted to enact the 17th Amendment to the constitution that set up independent commissions to de-politicise State agencies.

The question is whether the spirit of cooperation in the country’s Parliament can be harnessed again to undo a mistake made three years ago, this time not by amendment but by wiping the slate clean and going back to the drawing board in terms of how Sri Lanka wants to be governed.