The Proposed New Constitution: Some Suggestions & Thoughts
Dr. Rajasingham Narendran
The Executive Presidency instituted through the 1978 Republican constitution and subsequently amended nineteen times (the 20th was on line) has to be faulted for most of the myriad failures in Sri Lanka’s democracy and governance. The Executive Presidency of Sri Lanka is a badly designed institution within a badly designed and subsequently further distorted constitution. It is probably the strongest office in the world! The constitution of 1978 was designed to bestow unbridled power on one man to do everything but change a man into women and vice versa, and ensure permanent governance by the UNP. It was designed to make the Executive Presidency dictatorial and unprincipled in the hands of the wrong person holding that office.
In the process all other institutions , the parliament, judiciary and public services, were deformed beyond recognition and made subservient to the Executive Presidency. Accountability, rule of law and everything else that define good governance had been comatose by January’1915. The impunity bestowed on the Executive Presidency, had reached and polluted every mound and crevice in Sri Lanka. Democracy had become a sham. Governance was/is no doubt at its poorest
A nation that had universal franchise 85 years (1931) back- much before other British colonies in Asia- and had a vibrant democracy at independence (1948) has since the 1977 constitution, sold the sovereignty of its people to elected tin pot dictators. The 18th amendment dealt a death blow to constitutional norms, principles of governance even as laid down, ethics, political morality and established principles of democracy.
The questions we have to ask are:
1. Is the concept of a Republican Constitution wrong or is OUR republican constitution deliberately designed wrong?
2. Is the concept of an Executive Presidency wrong or is OUR executive presidency deliberately designed wrong?
2. Is the concept of an Executive Presidency wrong or is OUR executive presidency deliberately designed wrong?
My answer to both these questions is the same. The constitution and the executive presidency within it have been deliberately designed wrong. They have been designed to elect a monarch, to whom all other institutions and the people are subsidiary and subservient. It also has paved the way to establish a familial monarchy of sorts. It has paved the way for elected Executive Presidents to assume pseudo-democratic legitimacy through various devices that breach moral and ethical principles, rule us with an iron fist, hiding mala-fide intent with smiling faces and what Nilantha Ilangamuwa (Sri Lanka Guardian. August 5, 2014) quoting Walter Lippmann chooses to call ‘Manufactured Consent’ in an article.
The concept of ‘manufacturing consent’ is not an innovation of the last government, but has been practiced by all governments before it, though the last government has made it a very sophisticated exercise. Money power, hired muscle power, mob squads led by yellow clad thugs, white vanning, murder, media manipulations , the police and armed forces, the parliament and the judicial system were used as never before to manufacture this ‘manufactured consent’. The manner in which Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was removed from office will forever stand as an example of this ‘manufactured consent’! The manner in which the two thirds majority was constructed and the 18th amendment to the constitution passed is another. There is a multitude, more. What was ‘manufactured consent’ steadily morphed into ‘consent by the quiet and silence of a morgue’ enforced by blatant use of pressures of various types. We were made into the four monkeys that do not see, hear, speak or show!
