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By Dharisha Bastians
Lawmakers will spar on sharply divisive national questions such as devolution of power when the Constitutional Assembly kicks off a three-day debate on new constitutional proposals contained in the Steering Committee’s interim report today.
The report envisions wider power sharing arrangements with the provinces, including the North and East, and sweeping changes to the country’s electoral and governance systems.
The debate in the 225-member Parliament, which meets as a constitutional assembly this week, comes amid vociferous calls by nationalist groups and powerful sections of the Buddhist clergy to abandon the constitution-making process on the basis that the new proposals contained in the Interim Report would lead to the division of the country.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the pro-Rajapaksa Joint Opposition (JO) have sparked fears about increased devolution of power to the provinces paving the way for a separate Tamil state. The Joint Opposition has threatened to wear black armbands in the Chamber during the debate to protest the proposals contained in the interim report.
The calls against the new Constitution have also been taken up by the nationalist trade unions including the GMOA, which is threatening to mobilise its membership against the proposals and even sections of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka.
But architects of the proposals emphasise that according to the Interim Report, a new Constitution will contain far greater safeguards against secession than the 1978 Constitution, with powers constitutionally assigned to the President to take over the powers of provincial councils and even dissolve the provincial legislative bodies in the event of a clear and present danger to the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne, UNF MP and Co-Chairman of the Management Committee appointed by the Steering Committee tasked with formulating proposals for the new Constitution, told Daily FT that the fears of the JO and other groups about secession were unfounded.
According to Dr. Wickremaratne, the new proposals suggest a ban on provincial councils even discussing matters related to secession. “Under the 1978 Constitution the power to take back control of the provincial councils and dissolve the councils, if there is a threat or danger of secession, is granted to the President through a special amendment to the Provincial Council Act. This amendment can be repealed by a simple majority.
In the new proposals, power will be vested in the Executive constitutionally and therefore can only be changed by a super majority in Parliament,” he explained.
Dr. Wickremaratne, who is likely to spearhead the drafting of a new Constitution if the process continues, was also involved in the drafting of the 2000 constitutional proposals. The Government MP insists that the situation in 2017 is wholly different, with both the Government and the Tamil parties operating without a gun to their heads by the LTTE.
“The LTTE is defeated and the Tamil parties are more moderate and don’t feel the pressure of the LTTE anymore. So they can be more realistic. In 2000 the TULF wanted the word unitary dropped completely. In this round of Constitution-making there is broad agreement that under the new Constitution the country should be unitary in the classic sense – one undivided, indivisible country,” Dr. Wickremaratne noted.
The three-day debate will not conclude with a vote on the Interim Report at this stage, but Steering Committee members believe their discussions and formulations will be informed by the extensive debate and will help the committee to formulate its final report.
From April 2016 to September 2017, the Steering Committee met 73 times to get broad consensus from all political parties on thorny issues including the executive presidency, electoral reform, the nature of the State and devolution of power.
The final report submitted to the Constitutional Assembly by the Steering Committee will contain the new draft Constitution as an annexure, Dr. Wickremaratne explained, that will then be subject to a vote in the House and will require a two-thirds majority to be passed.
The three-day debate is set to be contentious, particularly with the Government MPs expected to turn out in force and the pro-Rajapaksa JO likely to take a sharply nationalist position on devolution and evoke the spectre of separatism.
