FRANCHISE DELAYED IS FRANCHISE DENIED
By Lakshman I.Keerthisinghe-2017-12-09
Edmund Barton
- American Politician
Media reported that the Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya had stated that "No one in this universe knows when exactly any election could be held in Sri Lanka." The Election Commission, the Commissioner said, is of the opinion that the Local Government elections are unusually late. He recounted the recent causes for the delay: In Amending the 2012 Local Government Law, there is a clause which says the Minister can appoint another review committee when the Delimitation Committee Report is forwarded. Therefore, in November 2015, Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister, appointed a Committee. This Committee and the Local Government Minister had an All-Party Conference in December 2015 and declared that their report would be out in three months. It was said that elections can be held in April 2016. When the Elections Commission was appointed in April the Election Commissioner as the Chairman of the Commission, had expressed doubts and said more time would be taken.
If everything were completed the elections could have been held in 75 days. The Committee Report was made available only in February 2017. The Minister had gazetted it on 17 February. The review is over and the people questioned as to why elections cannot be held. The boundaries and other technical defaults needed to be corrected and also the number of members to be elected needed to be determined.
While these processes were on in 2016, the Government introduced a new Act to increase women representation. According to this Act, there had to be a minimum of 25 per cent female members in the Council. They should be brought in from a separate list. The earlier system was for people to contest from a ward and when they win and another number is selected from the losers list. This means there would be three nominations lists, one to contest (from wards), one to be selected from the losers and another one for female members. In Colombo (MC) there would have been 66 from votes, 19 from losers' list and 28 females – altogether 113. Earlier the Council had only 53 members. The 28 females are compulsory. Therefore, the Commission cannot call for elections – because the Commission is not aware of the exact number. The Minister must gazette it. The Minister gazetted the number of members in April 2017. He put the effective date as 1 July. But in July the Minister submitted a draft Bill to Parliament to clear the technical faults. The minister issued another Gazette on 30 June, and postponed the effective date as 2 October.
Therefore, the Commission could not go ahead with the plan to conduct elections, it was said.
In the meantime, the Court of Appeal issued an Interim Order suspending the operation of the Gazette Notification dated 17 February on the Delimitation Committee Report, until 4 December. The Court made this order consequent to a writ petition filed by six electors who challenged the legality of the Gazette Notification issued by the Provincial Councils and Local Government Minister on the Delimitation Committee Report with regard to the boundaries in respect of Local Authorities. The Court observed that in promulgating the Gazette notification, the Local Government Minister has acted ultra vires the powers vested in him under Section 3D of the Local Authorities Elections Ordinance. The Court further held that if any electoral process commenced in terms of the concerned Gazette notification, irreparable damage would be caused to the people's franchise rights. Thus, the election had to be suspended pending the final determination of the Court. Some say that the petitioners have acted under the influence of the regime in order to delay the election. The Attorney General had filed a motion requesting the Court to advance the date of hearing stating that this concerns a matter of national importance. The Court has rejected this request as the Court is not bound by such requests. It was said that the petitioners who filed the case against the Gazette on delimitation pertaining to the Local Government Election have decided to reach a settlement and withdraw their petition in which case the elections could be held as scheduled..
In conclusion, it must be noted that franchise most commonly refers to: suffrage, which means, the civil right to vote. Every citizen has been granted voting rights under the Constitution and the Local Government Election law. To delay elections by design or inefficiency of the State is to deny the prime right of suffrage to the citizen which grants the power to elect their representatives authorized to rule on their behalf as the people are sovereign.
(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law with LLB, LLM, MPhil.(Colombo) keerthisinghel@yahoo.co.uk
