Sri Lanka has the dubious pleasure of being a country that perhaps has the most number of constitutional experts. This of course was to do with the events of the 26th of October when Ranil Wickremesinghe was sacked by the President.
To look at whether or not this is constitutional from a commoners perspective one would necessarily have to start at the beginning. That beginning was the parliamentary elections held after the so-called 100 days of power which in any event was more than 100 days – but that in itself has no bearing.
The parliamentary elections were contested by the UPFA, the JVP, the TNA and several others. Those several others banded together and called themselves the National Front for Good Governance a registered political party. They entered into a legally binding agreement in terms of affidavits in which they recognised the leader of their United National Front as Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The National front also sought and obtained (Ranil Wickremesinghe is the leader of both) permission of the UNP to use their symbol and their name and in effect the collection of many smaller parties and the UNP got together into one political party to contest the election.
Once the results were in the ‘collective’ ended up with the most number of seats with 106 and were clearly short of a majority in the house. President Sirisena as leader of the UPFA agreed to partner with the ‘collective’ and thereafter had a majority of the seats namely 148.
It followed therefore that the appointment of RW as the PM was in essence elementary.
On the 26th of October it was decision time not only for Sirisena as the President of the nation but also for KAru Jayasuriya and the Prime Minister who was in Galle.
The UPFA delivered a letter to the Speaker in which they officially left the coalition government.
Immediately they did so the Cabinet of Ministers as it existed at that particular moment became at odds with the constitution namely the 19th Amendment and the article dealing with the size of the Cabinet.
Immediately the Cabinet of Ministers ceased to be functional due to the unconstitutionality of having a large cabinet (over 30) because there was no partnership between the ‘collective’ with its 106 members and anyone else, the function of that Prime Minister also, constitutionally, ceased.
One of two things ought to have happened and it is the second scenario that happened.
One was that when the Speaker received notification he clearly informed the PM of the situation that the PM had lost his partner – the partner that helped him constitutionally overcome the size of the Cabinet. Since the PM was now in an unenviable position with the size of the Cabinet being unconstitutional he had to immediately find enough numbers to make up the magic number from 106 to 113.
Clear;y this meant that he needed either the entire TNA or a combination of the TNA and the JVP. He needed just 7 members. Clearly the Prime Minister was unable to garner the numbers and thus ran the risk of being ousted in a political coup by the President
All others were already within his collective in any event.
In fact what happened was that Maithripala Sirisena acted much quicker than RW did. He was already tired of his PM and he perhaps seized the moment with glee: the president immediately appointed a Prime Minister who in his opinion could command the majority in the house. Enter Mahinda Rajapaksa and the start of the concern internationally.
The Sinhalese version of the 19th Amendment clearly envisages the removal of the Prime Minister other than by death or resigning as a MP or otherwise.
To debate purely by looking at the 19th Amendment in isolation would be fatally wrong. One must look at the whole intent and purpose of the Constitution before coming to a conclusion.
International perspective cannot dictate terms to a sovereign nation. We in Sri Lanka are not part of the British Empire or any empire of some other dubious name.
This column calls for all those envoys who dared turn up at Temple Trees be declared persona non grata and sent back to where they came from or sent back on their merry way
