MUCH ADO OVER NOTHING
Never have a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker duo been so
forthright, and irrespective of party affiliations there should
be general acceptance of the fact that both Chamal Rajapaksa and
Chandima Weerakkody call a spade a spade. On Wednesday, the
Deputy Speaker Chandima Weerakkody stated that those MPs who
appear before the Appeal Court relating to Parliamentary Select
Committee (PSC) proceedings, are in clear violation of the
Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act.
He then proceeded to quote chapter and verse. There is no
question about it; no notices can be issued on Parliament on
something that is strictly within the purview of Parliament,
constitutionally -- and the Appeal Court that has done so has
erred in law, as the Deputy Speaker so cogently explained.
It is the system that is at work, and it is indeed fortuitous
that these two gentlemen presiding over parliamentary business,
are so business-like in their judgement and the articulation of
it. The standoff that civil society has predicted, which
'experts' said was going to set off an unprecedented
constitutional crisis, did not take place.
What happened instead, was that Parliament took care of its
own business, giving the courts, the clearly erring party in
this exchange, the leeway to commit the mistake it's making in
cocooned isolation.
Lawyers such as S. L. Gunasekera have pronounced as if in
delivery of some kind of god given wisdom that Parliament is not
supreme, and that the people are according to our constitution.
Which eight year old does not know that the sovereignty is
vested with the people in the constitution of Sri Lanka?
That does not derogate from the fact that in matters that
concern Parliament, it is the Parliament that has the
constitutional right to prevail - - and impeachment hearings
concerning Supreme Court judges is one such issue in which
clearly, the constitutional right of the Legislature overrides
any power that is vested in the Judiciary. Under law, therefore,
the elected Legislature prevails over the unelected Judiciary in
this matter, and Sumanthiran may stand on his head and say that
all three branches of state enjoy equal power and acts as
instruments of checks and balances on one another -- yet that
does nothing to take away from the fact that in this issue,
Parliament prevails over the Judiciary, and that's according to
the constitutional document that is the repository of the
sovereign rights of the people.
The members of Parliament who as at the time of writing were
said to appear before the Appeal Court in response to the court
order, are in figurative terms, those who want to slash their
noses in order to spite their faces.
How far would these people go to score political points over
the government, demeaning their own selves to patently go
against the authority granted them in terms of parliamentary
privileges, as representatives of the people?
The Speaker's unequivocal assertion that notices cannot be
issued on Parliament by the Courts on what is exclusively a
process that pertains to Parliament, goes for the Appeal Court's
delivery of the Supreme Court judgment on the PSC yesterday, as
well. The Supreme Court judgment states that the PSC has no
right to investigate the Chief Justice on charges made in the
impeachment motion, as the relevant Standing Order 78 (A) is not
law.
That the constitution states clearly that such an
investigative body should be established either by Standing
Order or law does not seem to matter to a Supreme Court Bench
that has directly flouted the Speaker's authoritative notice on
this matter, which as per parliamentary privileges should be
taken judicial notice of.
The Speaker and the Deputy Speaker therefore clearly state
that the court has arrogated to itself, powers that are not
constitutionally vested in it. This is serious, and legally, the
Supreme Court judges are in contempt of Parliament.
However, it is not as if such a pointless 'standoff' has not
been resolved in the favour of the Parliament before. Speaker
Anura Bandarnaike dismissed a similar effort of a then Supreme
Court to arrogate to itself powers that it did not enjoy. There
was hardly a blip in the radar then; there will be hardly a blip
in the radar now as a result of this 'standoff.' |