Sri Lankan government appoints Committee to formulate 19th Amendment
By Santhush Fernando
Colombo, 13 September, (Asianteribune.com):
Sri Lanka’s United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government has appointed a four-member committee headed by former Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickremenayake to formulate the policy decisions for the next Amendment to the Constitution.
Ministers Susil Premajayanth, John Senevirathne and Dr. Sarath Amunugama are the other three members of this committee which is entrusted with the task of rationalizing the Thirteenth Amendment in order to make the Provincial Council system effective and also to introduce a mixed system for Parliamentary and Provincial Council Elections held hereafter. Although the UPFA is still not decided on the exact modality of electoral reforms it is likely that the German Model (Hybrid) would be introduced after discussions with other political parties.
*Tagline- German Model considered for future Parliamentary and Provincial Council Elections*
“During the electoral reforms process of the previous Parliament, all parties agreed in principle that the current Proportional Representation (PR) system introduced by the 1978 Constitution should be done away with and replaced with a mixed or hybrid system. However parties failed to agree on the exact modality,” a highly placed source told the Asian Tribune.
It is likely that the government is considering reducing the number of constituencies from the current 160 to 140 with the re-constitution of the Delimitation Commission ha can now be effected with the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment, to redraw boundaries of constituencies.
Also it is likely that without changing the current number of Members of Parliament (i.e. 225) 140 would be elected under the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) System and another 70 would be elected under the PR system while 15 would be appointed on a combined provincial and national list.
*Local Government Election likely to be held early 2011? *
However it is learnt that the UPFA will experiment the hybrid system with the next Local Government Election, which is likely to be held early 2011. The Government is yet to introduce the Local Government Elections (Amendment) Bill to Parliament which proposes that 70 percent of councilors would be elected on Ward-Based or FPTP system while the remaining 30 percent would be elected under the PR system.
On Wednesday (September 8), House of Parliament approved the government’s much-debated Eighteenth Amendment, with a majority of 144 votes, as 161 MPs voted for the Bill while only 17 voted against it.
- Asian Tribune -
Comments
Constitutional Amendments
The constitutional amendments also should take into account if in case the power is held by the rogue what safe guards are available to the people. We saw how this power can be abused during the time of JRJ, Premadasa and CBK. We would have devastation if Sarath Fonseka ascended to this office.
We should consider the following points.
No government should be able to extend its own term of office or remuneration paid to parliamentarians and the president.
Number of times a person contesting elections should be limited to twice unless he/she elected to office when this limit is counted again.
No person should be allowed to contest an election unless he is a resident of Sri Lanka of good standing.
Dual citizens should not be allowed to contest for the post of president or Member of Parliament.
Top government officials should not be allowed to enter politics for at least 5 years after his/her resignation/termination of state employment.
Members of Armed services should be barred from entering politics if he/she holds a rank of Colonel or above.
Persons with criminal record should not be allowed to enter politics. There should be at least a 10 years clean record to contest any political office or hold any senior public office.
Media should state facts separately from their stories. If wrong facts are presented they should be penalized. However, ability for a media organization to articulate their opinions should not be interfered with.