LANKA Standard Vishnuguptha | Published on November 27, 2011
in terms of age-old traditions of parliamentary practices, the Finance Minister, in this instance His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka (as he could not trust to give this vital portfolio away to any other member of his sixty one-strong Cabinet) was in the process of presenting his Budget in an unusually halting manner, exposing his lack of familiarity with the gravity of the occasion and the seriousness of the contents of his presentation. In the well of the House, the Opposition MPs, mostly UNPers, held placards that read “Shame” etc. Some government MPs, including some Cabinet Members like Mervyn Silva started advancing towards the placard-holding UNP MPs and manhandling them in the assembly.
proceedings and the President, the younger brother who’s the Chief Executive of the nation, who was speaking chose not to avert a serious breach of Parliamentary proceedings. The right action would have been for the Speaker of the House, Honourable Chamal Rajapaksa to name those UNP MPs and instruct Sergeant-at-Arms to remove those MPs from the well of the House. It did not happen. The graver misconduct was in fact committed by the Speaker and the President by choosing to ignore the attacks by the government MPs. They were either condoning what was taking place or they were rendered into inaction by not knowing what course of action was open to them. Both choices are not acceptable to a decent society.
