විලි බිය අහිමි කරගැනීම
As the January 2015 campaign begins informally, Ivan argues that a third-term candidacy under the Eighteenth Amendment shows a government that has lost all shame. He recalls the Kalawana case after 1977, when an election petition by Sarath Muttetuwegama unseated the UNP’s Pilapitiya and Speaker Bakeer Markar’s ruling produced two members for one seat, to show how elections were once policed. He lists the corrupt practices defined in the Presidential Elections Act of 1981 that the head of state is committing, and contrasts the discipline of India’s election commission, which checked even Narendra Modi.
අවිචාරය, උද්ධච්චකම හා අශීලාචාරත්වය
Ivan argues that by ignoring the judgments of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal in the impeachment of the Chief Justice, the government has done what no previous government dared, destroying both the courts’ legitimacy and its own. He traces the Supreme Court’s power to interpret the constitution and the ancient reach of the writ jurisdiction, recalls the Bracegirdle case under colonial rule and Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s certiorari against J.R. Jayewardene’s commission, and warns, with Musharraf’s Pakistan as the precedent, that two rival Chief Justices could now follow.
එදා ජේ.ආර්. කල දේම අද චන්ද්රිකා කරයි
Ivan compares the government’s rush to enlarge Parliament to 281 seats with 168 elected by first-past-the-post, avoiding a referendum through a court ruling, with J.R. Jayewardene’s attempt to keep Abeyratne Pilapitiya in Parliament after losing the Kalawana election petition. Then the Supreme Court ruled that adding even one seat required a referendum and Sarath Muttetuwegama took the seat. He estimates buying the nine UNP votes needed for two-thirds would cost about Rs 180 million.