ව්යවස්ථා සම්පාදනය හා අධිකරණය (ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය – 6)
Part 6 examines judicial review. Under Articles 120 to 124 of the 1978 constitution the Supreme Court can review bills only before they pass, so unconstitutional amendments can go through with a two-thirds majority. Parliament has ignored conventions, as in extending its own life by referendum. Contrasting Chief Justice Marshall’s establishment of judicial review in the United States and the Indian Supreme Court’s defence of the basic structure, Ivan argues that Sri Lanka’s courts have lacked the independence and creativity to protect a constitution, however good.
ව්යවස්ථා සංශෝධනය (ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය – 5)
Part 5 compares how constitutions are amended in the United States and India, where fundamental provisions are hard to change and courts have restored constitutions after they were abused, with Sri Lanka, where all three constitutions were made by majority power rather than consensus. He surveys amendments to the 1978 constitution: the 1982 early presidential election and fraudulent referendum, the Sixth Amendment after Black July, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth, Kumaratunga’s failed draft, and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Eighteenth.
පාඨකයින්ට පෙනෙන්නේ කෙසේද?
A short note to readers on the constitution series. Ivan explains the plan he set himself over the New Year holiday: to cover the history of Sri Lanka’s constitutions, what kind of constitution the country now needs and what it must achieve, which will take several more articles. He asks readers whether the series interests them enough to continue.
බලය ගල්ගැසුණු දෙයක් බවට පත් කළ ජේ.ආර්.ගේ ව්යවස්ථාව (ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය-4)
Part 4 examines the 1978 constitution. Holding five-sixths of Parliament after the 1977 election, J.R. Jayewardene rushed through a new constitution without proper public scrutiny, stripping Parliament of supremacy and creating a president above the law, with the power to appoint and dismiss the cabinet at will. Citing K.M. de Silva’s biography of Jayewardene, Ivan argues that though it removed some Sinhala-only provisions, the constitution was drafted without Tamil representatives and did nothing to stop young Tamils being pushed towards a separate state.
ව්යවස්ථාවක් හදාගැනීමේ ප්රශ්නය 3
The third part of Ivan’s series on constitution-making examines the Soulbury constitution, drafted around D.S. Senanayake’s wishes by Ivor Jennings, whose weak safeguards for minorities Lord Soulbury later regretted, and Colvin R. de Silva’s 1972 republican constitution, whose unitary state, primacy for Buddhism and Sinhala-only laws the Federal Party rejected. The Tamil representatives walked out, and the road led to the 1976 Vaddukoddai resolution for a separate state.
නව ව්යවස්ථාව ගැන
Continuing his response to the draft Nineteenth Amendment, Ivan sets out how a new constitution should be made: first agree the principles with the public, as South Africa and India did, then draft. He argues it must define a Sri Lankan nation of equal peoples and outlaw caste discrimination; return to a reformed parliamentary system with a mixed electoral system, a Senate and an Indian-style election commission; devolve power to village and district councils; bind governments to national policy frameworks, above all a foreign policy that respects India; and make the state secular.
19 වැනි සංශෝධන කෙටුම්පත ගැන
Ivan welcomes the campaign by Maduluwawe Sobitha’s National Movement for a Just Society to abolish the executive presidency, but argues its draft Nineteenth Amendment is a concept paper with a narrow vision. Every Sri Lankan constitution, and Chandrika Kumaratunga’s 2000 draft, was made by cunning or majority power rather than on the sovereignty of the people, as India and South Africa did. The draft ignores the unresolved question of who belongs to the nation, copies the flawed Constitutional Council of the Seventeenth Amendment, and keeps a simple-majority impeachment of judges.
වරද කාගේද?
Ivan traces Sri Lanka’s three constitutions to argue that each was made by whichever party held the numbers, without the consensus a constitution demands. The Soulbury order, flawed but workable, let governments fall; Colvin R. de Silva’s 1972 constitution stripped away its safeguards and ignored the Tamil language question; J.R. Jayewardene’s 1978 system put all power in one unaccountable man. Yet the fault, he concludes, is not J.R.’s alone but a society given independence as a gift, democratic on the surface and feudal at the core.
ලේ තැවරුණු නිදහසේ හැටපස් වසර
On the 65th anniversary of independence, Ivan argues that Sri Lanka never met the two conditions a nation-state needed: a united nation and a democratic political society. Contrasting India’s mass freedom struggle and three-year constituent assembly with Ceylon’s bloodless, deferential transfer of power, he recalls caste and religion used against A.E. Goonesinha, E.W. Perera and Arunachalam, and Oliver Goonetilleke’s manipulation of the Soulbury Commission. Each constitution since, culminating in the executive presidency, has deepened the distortion.
දෝෂාභියෝගයේ තවත් පැත්තක්
Ivan argues that the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake exposes a constitution built to keep the judiciary subservient: a judge who displeases the executive can be removed by a simple majority, while a president is all but unremovable. He sets her case beside Neville Samarakoon’s dignified stand against J.R. Jayewardene, reads the 1,575-page select committee report and finds the key charge unproven, yet holds that her part in buying a Trillium Residencies flat left her with a moral lapse of her own.