Executive Presidency:Single Issue or Non-Issue?
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by Rajan Philips-February 15, 2014, 5:49 pm
The law of presidential terms seems to work in funny ways in Sri Lanka. A limited term system usually turns an incumbent into a lame duck in his final term. President Rajapaksa’s unlimited term seems to have turned him into a permanent lame duck, but more in its executive sense than in its political sense. Mahinda Rajapaksa is presiding over a government that is abusing its power even to the extent of trying to change the intent of legislation through extraordinarily surreptitious gazette extraordinaire. That is what the Secretary to the Ministry of Higher Education is alleged to have done in regard to the University Act of 1978. By substituting the word "may" for "shall" the Secretary tried to remove the mandatory requirement that higher education institutions granting professional degrees must be accredited by the respective professional bodies. Administrative purists would consider this to be a far more heinous white collar crime than what the PM’s office pipsqueak did writing to the customs to clear for his buddy a shipment of heroin from Pakistan.
