News
Only four Constitutional Council members for tomorrow’s Budget hearing
View(s):- Others yet to be appointed; TPA Leader Mano Ganesan urges President Wickremesinghe to consider representing the country’s main communities
Parliament is yet to appoint a majority of members to the ten-member Constitutional Council (CC), the key decision-making body established under the 21st Amendment to the Constitution.
It was hoped the seven Parliamentarians who were to be appointed as members of the CC would be in place before President Ranil Wickremesinghe delivered his Budget speech tomorrow. This however, will not happen as the CC has only four members so far.
The President, Prime Minister and Opposition Leader are ex-officio members of the CC while President Wickremesinghe has named Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva to the CC as his nominee.
One member of the CC has to be nominated by a majority of Government MPs, while the Opposition Leader’s party nominates another. Minority parties and opposition groups that do not belong to the Opposition Leader’s party can also nominate one MP to the CC. The other three CC members will be appointed from outside Parliament.
Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) Leader Mano Ganesan told the Sunday Times he had requested Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa to nominate a hill country Tamil as the Samagi Jana Balawegaya’s nominee to the CC, but the Opposition Leader was likely to nominate a member from the Muslim community.
Mr. Ganesan also wrote to President Wickremesinghe this week, requesting him to call for a meeting with the Speaker, Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to discuss the possibility of building consensus in nominating four MPs representing “the ethnic diversity of Sri Lanka” to the CC. He requested the President to consider MPs representing the four major Sri Lankan communities; Sinhalese, Northern and Eastern Tamils, Muslims and upcountry Tamils, who were nominated by consensus.
Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, President Wickremesinghe too appealed to the legislature to expedite establishing members to the CC as that would pave the way to ensure members were appointed to the independent commissions and their functions conducted smoothly.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena chaired discussions on Wednesday and Thursday on establishing the CC. A spokesperson from the Parliament’s Communications Department said both the PM and Opposition Leader agreed to forward their nominations to the CC without delay.
It was also agreed to publish a newspaper advertisement calling for applications to appoint three people who are not MPs as members of the CC, and provide the interested parties two weeks to submit their applications. The advertisement would be published in weekday and weekend newspapers and the format for the application would be published on the official Parliament website.
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