More on the impeachment of CJ

There have been many articles in the press questioning the legality of the impeachment motion against the CJ Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake. On the other hand there have been many who question the very appointment of Dr. Bandaranayake as the CJ and before that to the Supreme Court. However it is clear that they were silent when she was appointed to these posts by the Presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapakse respectively. Also those who question the illegality of the impeachment of the present CJ did not raise their objections when the previous impeachments of Messrs. Neville Samarakone and Sarath Silva took place several years ago, and conversely those who were then against now support the impeachment. It is clear that there being no objectivity we are all guided by our subjectivities calling them objective facts. I am not an exception and I admit that we are guided by the way we have been trained by culture meaning the ways we have been brought up at home, in schools, influences of books we read, and of people whom with we associate, and how we have responded to them. I have not come across any work by a Philosopher, Scientist or anybody else where it has been shown that there is an objective world (universe), objectively without appealing to subjectivity. In other words there is no objectivity. If there is no objectivity in western science it is not fair to ask for objectivity in western law or in any system of knowledge for that matter.

Thus if one expects objective decisions from the courts of law one is mistaken. The decisions from court to court can vary. Otherwise there would not be appeals against judgements given by so called lower courts. I myself have the experience of going from the labour tribunals to high court and then finally to Supreme Court, the three courts of law giving three different judgements over my dismissal from the University of Colombo which itself was decided by a council that included two legal luminaries, a Bishop and several eminent people from the public service and high achievers in the private sector, supposedly based on a report submitted after a lengthy hearing at the BMICH at an enormous cost to the university by a panel headed by a reputed public servant. The labour tribunal ordered the University to pay me Rs. 750,000.00, the high court found me guilty and finally the Supreme Court ordered the University to pay me Rs. 500,000.00. I could not understand the rationality of any of these decisions when I had lost more than Rs. 5,000,000.00 as a result of being deprived of my livelihood (I sold Mathematics and Theoretical Physics for a living) by the council of the University of Colombo.

I have no training in legal matters but as said previously it is clear to me (my subjective view) that according to the constitution of the republic the impeachment is legal. Though westerners under western Christian modernity believe and preach in separation of powers (and separation of Church and state, education and religion etc.,) it is not so, and even in the case of sovereignty the three separate powers are united in the People. What is emphasised here is that the legislature, the executive and the judiciary are not on the same footing as described in Article (4) of the constitution. The relevant sections of the Article are reproduced below.

“(4) (a) the legislative power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament, consisting of elected representatives of the People and by the People at a Referendum;

(b) the executive power of the People including the defence of Sri Lanka, shall be exercised by the President of the Republic elected by the People;

(c) the judicial power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament through courts, tribunals and institutions created and established, or recognized, by the Constitution, or created and established by law, except in regard to matters relating to the privileges, immunities and powers of Parliament and of its Members, wherein the judicial power of the People may be exercised directly by Parliament according to law;

Though some people believe that the courts tribunals etc., are supreme in matters of law, it is not the case as the judicial power of the People is exercised by Parliament, but of course through courts tribunals etc. If the constitution said that the judicial power of the People shall be exercised by the Courts etc., without reference to the Parliament then it would have been a different matter altogether. As it is, it is the Parliament that exercises the judicial power of the People through the courts etc. This is further confirmed by the reference to the high court in Article 111 (1) which states “There shall be a High Court of Sri Lanka, which shall exercise such jurisdiction and powers as Parliament may by law vest or ordain.”

Then we have the problem of the impeachment itself. The relevant Articles of the constitution are quoted below.

“107. (1) The Chief Justice, the President of the Court of Appeal and every other Judge, of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal shall be appointed by the President of the Republic by warrant under his hand.

(2) Every such Judge shall hold office during good behaviour, and shall not be removed except by an order of the President made after an address of Parliament supported by a majority of the total number of Members of Parliament (including those not present) has been presented to the President for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity:

Provided that no resolution for the presentation of such an address shall be entertained by the Speaker or placed on the Order Paper of Parliament, unless notice of such resolution is signed by not less than one-third of the total number of Members of Parliament and sets out full particulars of the alleged misbehaviour or incapacity.

(3) Parliament shall by law or by Standing Orders provide for all matters relating to the presentation of such an address, including the procedure for the passing of a such resolution, the investigation and proof of the alleged misbehaviour or incapacity and the right of such Judge to appear and to be heard in person or by representative.”

It is clear that the President can remove the CJ by an order after an address of Parliament supported by a majority has been presented to the President for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. Article 107(3) states how Parliament could provide for all matters relating the presentation of such address including the procedure for the passing of such resolution, investigation etc. It is understood that the relevant standing orders were made when the impeachment of Mr. Neville Samarakone was taken up. Thus there is nothing illegal regarding the impeachment whether we agree with it or not.

My subjective view is that the judgements on the Divineguma Bill and/or the Z score problem are not the causes(s) of the impeachment though I believe that the Supreme Court erred in its judgement on the Z score problem. One cannot find fault with the judgement on the Divineguama Bill, as the thirteenth amendment would compel any other bench in the future to give a similar judgement demonstrating that after the thirteenth amendment we are no longer a Unitary state. It is the thirteenth amendment and the Provincial Councils that have to go and one hopes that government would take steps to repeal the thirteenth amendment without further delay.

Finally there are those who complain that the majority of the Parliamentary Select Committee are from the government and hence it is a foregone conclusion as to the determination by the Committee. There are some who go to the extent of blaming again the “majority supremacy” for the composition of the Select Committee. I presume that composition reflects the present distribution of the Parliamentarians among various political parties, and I am afraid until the next Parliament is selected or “majority supremacy” is replaced by “minority supremacy” the Select Committees would constitute of Parliamentarians approximately in the same ratio.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Why 13A should be repealed – II

The thirteenth amendment was imposed by India on us following the infamous Indo Lanka Accord signed by J R Jayewardene under threat amidst dropping of Parippu. Rajiv Gandhi bullied Jayewardene with his Parippu diplomacy using Dixit who thought that he was the Viceroy. India did not act alone as it had the support of the west to the dismay of Jayewardene. India and west had been involved in training the Tamil terrorists, and England in particular created and nurtured Tamil racism. When the thirteenth amendment was referred to the Supreme Court four judges were of the opinion that the Bill was in agreement with the Constitution while four others ruled that it violated the constitution. The judgment of the remaining ninth judge was interpreted to claim that the Bill was in agreement with the constitution and the thirteenth amendment was introduced to the Parliament giving the impression that the Bill did not violate the constitution. Mr. Raja Wanasundara has explained what had happened and it appears that the thirteenth amendment bill was introduced to the Parliament in violation of the constitution. In my opinion it was illegal to do so. The bill was not discussed by the people and the MPs were transported from a hotel in Colombo to the Parliament Bill to vote under compulsion for the bill. The then Prime Minister and several other ministers were against the Bill but there was nothing much that they could do effectively. The thirteenth amendment was introduced to the Parliament in the most undemocratic way to say the least.

In any event it is said that the thirteenth amendment was introduced to address the grievances of the Tamils which were resulted by the actions of the “Sinhala governments” after 1948. On one hand even if one assumed that there were “grievances” of the Tamils, the thirteenth amendment attempted to solve only those of the Tamils lived in the Northern and eastern Provinces. As the majority of the Tamils lived outside those two provinces the so called grievances of the majority of the Tamils would not have been solved. Thus it was a bogus claim to say that the 13 A addressed the grievances of the Tamils in the country. Perhaps the Tamils living in the other seven provinces did not and do not have any grievances! In any event those who claim that the “Sinhala governments” are responsible for the grievances of the Tamils after 1948, should explain why Chelvanayakam during the debate on the Throne Speech of the first Parliament in 1947 itself said that if the Sinhala people could gain independence from the British the Tamils should be able to gain independence from the Sinhalese. They should also explain why Chelvanayakam established Ialnkai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Lanka Tamil State Party) in 1949 for the specific purpose of creating a Tamil state. It is clear that at least as far back as 1947 Chelvanayakam had ideas of “gaining independence” from the Sinhalas and forming a separate state. It has to be mentioned that Suntharalingam had spoken of Eylom long time ago.

Further those who claim that the Tamils rose against injustices caused to the Tamil people by the “Sinhala governments” after 1948 have to explain why G G Ponnambalam wanted fifty – fifty in the State Council making the percentage of the Sinhala members of the council less than fifty, and agitation by the Ponnambalam brothers to reduce the number of Sinhala members of the Legislative Assembly so that the Tamil members could dominate the proceedings and remain as leaders of the so called Ceylonese nation, during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. It is clear that the injustices, grievances, aspirations story does not hold water. The communal politics of the English speaking Tamil Vellalas began almost from the commencement of the Legislative Assembly with the connivance of the English governors and other British officials. The English wanted to weaken the Sinhalas who alone had fought against them at least from 1817 and used the English speaking Tamil Vellalas for that purpose. When after universal franchise the Tamil leaders began to lose their privileges they with the help of the English interpreted the loss of their privileges as injustices caused to the Tamils in general. Chelvanayakam from the beginning realized what was happening and wanted to establish an Eelam (an independent Tamil state) as far back as 1947. He knew that the English speaking Tamil Vellalas alone could not achieve what he wanted and tried to organize not only the Tamils but the so called Tamil speaking people under one umbrella.

Even if one believes in the injustices, grievances, aspirations story one has to consider the negotiations, operations as one system without treating so called political solutions and military solutions as two opposite poles. Military solutions as wehave said for long time are also political solutions, and Nandikadal was the final solution given to a problem that had existed for almost two hundred years. The final political solution overrides all the other so called solutions arrived at through peace talks, negotiations etc., including the thirteenth amendment. The 13 A has been defeated politically but it hangs on legally as law always lags behind politics. The legislature has to make laws that suits the politics and the 13 A has to be repealed. When 13 A was introduced and passed in the Parliament the political situation was different. India had the upper hand with the support of the west, and laws were made to suite the then existing political balance. Even Mahinda Chinthana drafted in 2005 addressed the then existing political situation with the peace vendors of the NGOs and Norway calling the tune with England and USA composing the music. What was needed was a political solution, and at that time emphasis was made on so called peace talks. As far as the so called national question is concerned Mahinda Chinthana is outdated after Nandikadal.

There had been a lobby that pressed for a political solution through armed operations and gradually it was prevailed on the government that military operations should take the upper hand in arriving at a political solution. Nandikadal was the climax of all these and now it can be reversed only through armed operations again or by defeating the present government by hook or crook. Various attempts have been made by the west and India to topple the government first creating instability through various springs, Katunayake incident, FUTA strike and “executive – judiciary” clash being examples. It is not suggested that the west directly takes part in these incidents but the western education that we receive with their theories acts as an agent of the interests of the west. Then the west has the dispersed Tamils living in their countries, the TNA, the NGOs that are on their pay roll, which are continually being used to propagate the myth that a “political solution” is needed even after the final political solution was given at Nandikadal.

There is no going back to Thimpu from Nandikadal and 13 A has to find its way to the dust bin of history. After the so called second world war if some Natzi remnants asked Churchill that they should have talks to decide the fate of Europe in particular and the world in General, the latter would have given a reply in choice language. On the other hand had Prabhakaran won finally with the assistance of the west what would have been the result? Would anybody have asked Prabhakaran to settle for 13 plus? The humanitarian operations have defeated not only Tamil terrorism but the injustices, grievances, aspirations story of Tamil racism created and nurtured by the English against the Sinhalas. The problem of the English educated Tamil Vellalas to become the leaders of the entire nation was interpreted as a struggle of the ordinary Tamils against the Sinhalas by the English and the Tamil racists, and various “solutions” were suggested to solve a non existing problem. All these “solutions” have been superseded by Nandikadal and what remains to be done is to update law to be on par with politics.

The Divineguma bill has only revealed that the 13 A is not consistent with a unitary state. Whatever has been said by western Political Scientists a Unitary state should have one and only one institution that could make legislation for the entire country without any hindrances. The institution concerned should only be prevented from making laws that will deny the sovereignty of the people as stated in the constitution. It is clear from the judgment of the Supreme Court on the Divineguma Bill, that the Parliament does not have the power to make legislature valid for the entire country, as the nationalist forces have claimed all along. This implies that the present constitution is not unitary, though ironically in my opinion, the unitary character was removed illegally, and the unitary state has to be restored without any delay. The talks by the Tamil racists and the NGO lobby on the intervention by the so called international community have to be ignored as was done during the humanitarian operations. If the majority of the people are with the government there is nothing that the so called international community could do against the will of the people.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Why 13A should be repealed - I

The thirteenth amendment is in the limelight again. Soon after the Supreme Court decided that the Divineguma Bill should be approved by the Provincial Councils we wrote to “The Island” on the 26th of September calling for the abolition of the thirteenth amendment. The movement to repeal the thirteenth amendment has gathered momentum after the Defense Secretary Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse stated that 13A should be abolished. The thirteenth amendment serves no purpose except being a source of income for the Chief Ministers, Ministers and the other council members. It is said that the 13th amendment would allow the Tamils living in the Northern and Eastern provinces to solve their problems as the Tamils are being discriminated by the so called Sinhala government. There are some Muslims living in the Eastern Province who think that they are discriminated by both the Sinhalas and the Tamils, agitating for some unit in the Eastern Province to be ruled by the Muslims.

The purpose of the 13A imposed on us by the Indian Government, with the connivance of the west, using force of Parippu politics and undiplomatic arm twisting by Dixit with the knowledge of Rajiv Gandhi, as told by the Indian government and the NGOs was to solve the problems of the Tamils who were supposed to be discriminated by the Sinhalas. The Muslims under Ashroff who had turned to communal politics following Chelvanayakam soon became interested in a “province” for themselves. Though the Tamil leaders have been asked to describe the so called grievances that the Tamils have merely because they are Tamils no answer has been given today. It has to be pointed out that the so called minorities in Sri Lanka enjoy more privileges than any minority in any other country. It is true that in Sri Lanka no non Sinhala Buddhist has been the President or the Prime Minister under the old constitution whereas one would point out that Manmohan Singh who is not a Hindu is the Prime Minister of India and Obama who is not an Anglo Saxon White is the President of USA. However what is not realized is that culturally Obama is a white Anglo Saxon Christian who admits that the white Anglo Saxon Christian culture is the dominant culture of USA (in fact it is the dominant culture of the world which imposes the knowledge produced in that culture on the rest of the world by force which any leader of FUTA should have understood under normal circumstances and fought for academic freedom from the west) in spite of rhetoric on multiculturalism, and that Singh is under the tutelage of Sonia Gandhi who has culturally become a Hindi speaking Hindu at least in public appearances. Whatever said and done Hindu culture is the dominant culture of India and Singh accepts it. Indian Congress though they may not say so in words is a Hindu Party for all practical purposes.

In Sri Lanka the English educated Tamil Vellala leaders did not even want to accept that the Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture of the country. This is something that even some Sinhala Christian and Catholic clergy and laymen did not want to accept, and in Sri Lanka if there is an ethnic problem it is nothing but the refusal by some educated people in the western tradition, under the auspices of the English and the rest of the westerners, to accept the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture and give that culture its due place. I am sure that if late Fr. Marceline Jayakody contested for the Presidency, from either the UNP or the SLFP, he would have been elected with a very big majority.

The Tamil Vellalas who do not have a history going before the seventeenth century were given privileges by the Dutch. The English governors and others who selected the English educated Tamil Vellala leaders as the leaders of the aborted Ceylonese nation after the Burghers used them as a force to weaken the Sinhala Buddhists in the country. The Tamil Vellalas dominated the politics in the nineteenth century as well as in the early part of the twentieth century over the Sinhala whether they were Christians, Catholics or Buddhists. I do not have to go into details as these have been described in numerous articles written on the subject. Politics of Ramanathan who was against universal franchise as it would have made the Sinhala representatives the majority in the state council, the politics of Arunachalam who wanted the Sinhala representation in the Legislative assembly cut down so that the Tamil representation would be more than the Sinhala representation, the politics of G G Ponnambalam who wanted to make the Sinhala representation in the state council a minority through his infamous fifty – fifty proposal speak volumes for the attitudes and objectives of the English educated Tamil Vellala leaders.

When the Tamil Vellala leaders could not hold to the privileges that they enjoyed they invented grievances. The only grievance was their incapability to hold on to political leadership after universal franchise. The “grievances” grew as their influence diminished, and Chelvanayakam realized around 1947 that the Tamil Vellalas with their anti Sinhala opinion could not become leaders at the centre, and wanted a separate state in the territories marked for a so called Eelam that ironically derived from Sihalam! The Eelam extended beyond the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and gradually concepts such as traditional homelands, natural habitats of the Tamil people emerged. Chelvanayakam established his Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Lanka Tamil State Party) way back in 1949 to fight for a separate state in the territories earmarked for an Eelam. However, it was not realized that unlike in India many Tamils (today the majority) lived outside the so called traditional homeland of the Tamils, and even if the Tamils had grievances, and establishment of an Eelam in the “traditional homeland” was not a solution to the so called grievances of the Tamils living outside “Eelam”. Thus there was an internal contradiction in the problem and the so called solution proposed, which has been ignored up to date.

In any event Chelvanayakam realized that the Tamil Vellalas could not win an Eelam on their own and he began to mobilize not only all the Tamils but the Muslims as well to fight for the Eelam. The Vadukkodai Resolution of 1976 was the result, and the terrorists who were organizing were also associated with Vadukkodai Resolution. The grievances became aspirations in the course of the “struggle” and the terrorists who were trained by India and the west soon gained the upper hand with the money poured in from those countries. The west was interested only in weakening the Sinhala people the only group to have fought against the English from 1817 onwards. The fight continued through Puran Appu, Gongalegoda Banda, Anagarika Dharmapala, the Bhasa Premins, fifty six, Mrs. Bandaranaike, 2005 Mahinda Chinthana, humanitarian operation. The Tamil terrorism was defeated in May 2010 but Tamil racism continues to exist with the patronage of the west and India. This struggle by the Sinhalas is nothing but a fight to gain the due place for the Sinhalas, and especially for the Sinhala Buddhist culture and is directed against the English and not the Tamils or any other minority in the country. The Tamil racism that was created by the Dutch and by the English, and nurtured by the English is used against the Sinhalas by India and the west. The west has portrayed the struggle between Tamil racism sponsored by the west and India and the Sinhalas, as one that establishes a Sinhala Buddhist hegemony over the Tamil Hindus, a story that appeals to the western media and their so called intellectuals, thus removing themselves from the actual struggle. The actual struggle is nothing but one by the Sinhalas against the English and the others in the west who sponsor Tamil racism, to win the rightful place for the Sinhalas, especially for the Sinhala Buddhists which has been denied to them since 1506.

In spite of the majority in the Parliament, Sinhala people could not win their rightful place as the west is very powerful and there was no leader after 1977 until 2005 who could stand up to pressure from the western countries and India. The struggle of the Sinhalas against the western hegemony and India has been interpreted as something else, and in the early nineties Chandrika Kumaratunga was imported from her self-exile by the NGOs, their friends and others to change the policies of the SLFP from a nationalistic party to one that supports western colonialism. We reiterate that the Sinhala people are still engaged in an anti colonial struggle, and the west is trying various methods to buckle it. As we had mentioned many moons ago they might even attempt to send Mahinda Rajapakse and Gotabhaya Rajapakse to the guillotine in the process, of course after defeating the present government. The Katunayake incident, FUTA strike, the “clash” between the executive and the judiciary are only attempts to destabilize the government by the Brahmins who have been brought up in the tradition of western education whether Liberal or Marxist.

From 1977 to 2005 the west and India had the upper hand and the thirteenth amendment was the result of the weak leadership of J R Jayawardane, and was part of the political struggle mentioned above. The process went on with the peace mongers dominating the scene and the Sri Lankan army was not allowed to engage in a proper operation against Tamil terrorism which was part and parcel of Tamil racism, through parippu diplomacy, threats, peace brigades, talks on invincibility of Prabhakaran, writings of so called intellectuals who are Brahmins on Betraying Buddhism, Unmaking of nations, Historiography etc. The thirteenth amendment was part of this political struggle against the Sinhala people. It was said that a so called political solution was needed for the Tamil problem, meaning a solution that further deprived the Sinhalas their rights, and not a military solution. The so called military solution was presented in opposition to a political solution giving the impression to the public that military solution is not a political solution. This is wrong as all military affairs are political activities and what was defeated in Nandikadal was all the so called political solutions including the thirteenth amendment that was forced on us by India with the connivance of the west to the dismay of J R Jayawardane who thought that the west would support him. The humanitarian operations have already repealed the thirteenth amendment politically but legally it is still part of the constitution. The law always lags behind almost everything else from politics to technology, and repeal of the thirteenth amendment legally is a requirement to update the legal position and equate it with the political position. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Abolish the thirteenth amendment

Divineguma bill should have opened the eyes of not only the government MPs but also of the others. The Supreme Court has decided that the Provincial Councils should approve the Bill before it is presented to the Parliament. There may be those who argue that power would be concentrated in the hands of one individual if the bill becomes law. However, if there was no thirteenth amendment it is very unlikely that the Supreme Court would have come to a conclusion to the effect that the bill does not agree with the constitution.

The Divineguma Bill even if it concentrated powers in the hands of a single individual it is not an arbitrary person who would use the powers but a cabinet minister within whose purview the particular Department or the Ministry would have been established. With a change of government, if not before that under a cabinet reshuffle a different individual could have been in charge of the Divineguma project and it is clear that as long as the thirteenth amendment is there it is another threat to the Parliamentary Democracy that has been there for more than sixty years in the country. It may be that we do not have the ideal parliamentary democracy in this country, but then which country has such an ideal system.

The thirteenth amendment as we all know was imposed on us by India in a very unparliamentarily way under the power of the guns. The government MPs were transported to the Parliament in buses from a hotel in Colombo and the SLFP and several other parties opposed the relevant bill. Rajiv Gandhi himself was involved with Dixit employing his “Viceroyal” powers over the elected President and the Parliament of the country. If not for India that trained the terrorists and supported them with the connivance of the western countries led by England that is wrongly referred to as Britain or United Kingdom there would not have been a thirteenth amendment. India and England together with other countries acted in unison to undermine the powers of the Parliament, in an official terrorist manner. It was nothing but terrorism of Dixit though he did not go round the country implanting bombs physically. His bomb was the thirteenth amendment, and it is time that not only our land but law as well is cleared of the bombs that the terrorists have implanted.

The thirteenth amendment has no rationality to be in our supreme law which is the constitution of the republic, as it was enacted in order to solve a so called ethnic problem that was created by the English. We were told that there was an ethnic problem that had to be solved peacefully through negotiations, and India guided by Tamil Nadu joined the west in opposing any operations by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces to eradicate the terrorist menace that was maintained by England led west and India. Various peace organizations were founded with western money and they echoed the views of their masters and mistresses. The peace bandwagon propagated the myth that the LTTE cannot be defeated and that Prabhakaran as a so called war leader was on par with some of the well known westerners. It never came to the enlightened minds of the so called western intellectuals that they should have compared Prabhakaran with at least some of the Cholas to be consistent. However the minds of the west and their henchmen and henchwomen in the NGOs were tuned to the wavelengths coming from the west and they had no time for fine tunings.

The west, India and their paid servants in the peace brigade wanted to base their solution to the so called ethnic problem on the thirteenth amendment and tried to sabotage operations by Armed Forces against the terrorists using even bankrupt ideas such as the Buddhists should not engage in war. If not for the wars the Sinhala Buddhists fought against the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras and finally the Europeans there would not have been a Sinhala Buddhist culture in this land and anybody who talks of Buddhism Betrayed is planning to undermine the Sinhala Buddhist culture. One finds these so called individuals repeating their masters’ voice, among the anti Sinhala Buddhist Social Scientists and the present FUTA leadership is well known for his anti Sinhala Buddhist views.

With the defeat of the LTTE in the Nandikadal Lagoon, the thirteenth amendment that was considered as the alternative course of action to the operations has lost any reason empirical theoretical or otherwise to exist in the constitution of the country and the government should have taken steps to abolish the thirteenth amendment soon after the LTTE terrorists were defeated three years ago. The thirteenth amendment that was imposed on us in a terrorist manner has to go as it is the wish of the people that has been expressed at number of elections. All that has to be done even at this later stage is to bring a nineteenth amendment to abolish the thirteenth amendment.

It is heartening to note that the new Chief Minister of the Eastern Province has said that thirteenth amendment serves no purpose and the Provincial Councils are white elephants or words to that effect. Keeping the thirteenth amendment in our supreme law is not different from keeping the Katunayaka and Trincomalee bases after the “independence”. As long as those bases were kept under the English there was no independence of any sort, and the thirteenth amendment imposed on us by India with the connivance of the west using terrorist methods only restrict our independence as seen by the fate that awaited the Divineguma Bill.

It is clear that with the current constitution of the Provincial Councils it would be not difficult for the President to get the Provincial Councils and the Governor of the Northern Province to approve the Divineguma Bill. However, it should not be done as it would give teeth to the unwanted thirteenth amendment and undermine the powers of the Parliament, which should be the only legislature in the country. We have had an eksesath rajya for thousands of years with one central legislature and administrative powers especially in the day to day work with gamsabhas headed by the Bhikkus of the village temples. They were not village councils elected by the people of the village but comprised leaders of the village who were accepted by the village community as the leaders.

The Supreme Court has given a ruling interpreting the existing law and it is up to the legislature to change the constitution. There is no point in discussing thirteen plus or even thirteen minus as it is clear that even the people in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces are not benefitted by the thirteenth amendment. The Divineguma would have been for the entire country including those two provinces and because of the thirteenth amendment the people in the Eastern and the Northern Provinces are denied of what they should have obtained as developmental measures. It is time for the members of the UPFA to get rid of this obnoxious piece of legislation imposed on us by India with the connivance of the western countries that has become a hindrance to the development of the country, though the western type development envisaged is not to our entire satisfaction.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva