Present text was penned under the Article 14(1 – a) of the constitution of Sri Lanka. It neither concerns any particular country nor any political team. However, its writer respectfully invites the wise and the intelligent, to carefully peruse the contents and if required to intellectually relate them with an open mind, to the happening political occurrences in the country of each reader. The scrutinization by itself is not enough, consecutively and with no delay, the needed and appropriate conclusions must be drawn and the minds should be galvanized into action.
It is stated that the present political situation in Sri Lanka, comprised in and confused by the pragmatic behaviour of some or rather the majority of politicians, has ensnared island in a terrific political crisis. The Speaker is being blamed. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is said to be involved. The presidential Prime Minister (Improvisation by GI) Mahinda Rajapaksa is charged to be the chief protagonist of the whole drama. And finally President Maithripala Sirisena is declared to be the betrayer of the UNP, by the so called votes of which, he could become the president of the island.
| Is the Parliament supreme? Is its supremeness absolute? Can the Parliamentary supremacy be questionable and debatable? Can it be challenged? Are there circumstances, wherein, the Judiciary can be relatively more supreme than the Parliament? If yes, what are those occasions? Can the Parliament and the Judiciary and the constitution be supreme in isolation, in varied situations? What is the legal basis and moral foundation of the supremacy of the Parliament? What is the ground of the institutional subordination of the constitution and the Judiciary to the Parliament? Questions are endless |
Each party makes the other responsible for the whole crisis. Besides, the so called “international community”, comprised mainly by couple of European countries, too has been galvanized in to action by the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and the group, creating a dangerous space for them to interfere in to internal affairs of Sri Lanka.
The main slogan of the Ranil Wickremesinghe group is democracy and the majority MP number in the Parliament. The crux of the Rajapaksa group polemics is Constitution of Sri Lanka and the powers of the President enshrined in the fundamental legal document of the island.
In such a concatenation of circumstances, in a country wherein, the supremacy of the Parliament is nestled over the judiciary, particularly by former Speaker Anura Bandaranaike, it is felt not only extremely expedient, but also very timely, to dig and digest rightly, the co-relation and spaces of interaction between these two powerful departments of administration.
Questions to be posed
Is the Parliament supreme? Is its supremeness absolute? Can the Parliamentary supremacy be questionable and debatable? Can it be challenged? Are there circumstances, wherein, the Judiciary can be relatively more supreme than the Parliament? If yes, what are those occasions? Can the Parliament and the Judiciary and the constitution be supreme in isolation, in varied situations? What is the legal basis and moral foundation of the supremacy of the Parliament? What is the ground of the institutional subordination of the constitution and the Judiciary to the Parliament? Questions are endless.
Reason, logics and commonsense
Any institution by itself is an illusion. There is no reality behind it. The institution is like the concept of forest. There is nothing called forest as such. There is the word “Forest”, coined by man. What is really available in the forest is “Tree”. In the absence of trees, the forest is just a pronounceable word, comprising no reality at all. Now, the Parliament in this wise is not an exception. There is no existential reality behind the “word” Parliament. The maximum, discoverable within the concept of Parliament is a building, built with bricks, cement, sand and concrete. The Parliament becomes a reality with members-representatives, elected for it, by the people in a democratic general election, to serve in the best interest of the general public, to launch the country along the developmental pad and to maintain and retain the rule of law and order in the country, assuring common progress and reassuring general welfare of all the people, with no regard to race, religion, caste, colour and particularly, with no consideration whatsoever for political affiliations, in the total absence of the mental contamination of social, religious and racial discrimination. This can be construed as a holy affair, relatively more holy than many religious affairs.
The supremacy of the Parliament was, is and will be closely associated and inseparably linked with this noble task. If the Parliament fails in attaining to this God-designed target, its supremacy becomes not only debatable, but also questionable and disgraceful. The real foundation of Parliamentary supremacy is not a dead document, howsoever fundamental it may be, with rules and norms, formulated by the majority of greedy men for power, in Asian countries, many a time by the uneducated and the thuggerish too, but, the hundred percent honest service for the men and women, who pay tax for everything, including the huge expenses and luxuries, being well enjoyed by parliamentarians.
Judiciary supremacy
Therefore, in a way, the Judiciary is logically seemed and empirically felt to be more supreme, than the Parliament. Why? The power of the Judiciary is specific, precise and granted by the constitution of the country. The competence of it, is not limited to a particular period, like of parliamentarians. By virtue of it, in the member of the Judiciary, the ceaseless greed for power is absent. Until his retirement, the powers, delegated by the constitution are enjoyed by its members. Their salaries are high. The recognition of their dignity is historical and continues from today to tomorrow. They are well educated. Their erudition maintains the power of the rule of law in the country and they grant justice to many, ensnared in to injustice. The court is the only venue, when the legislature and the executive violate the rights of the subjects of the society, the people can go to. No uneducated thugs, no drug barons, no thieves can occupy the beautiful space, the Judiciary enjoys and entertains.
The Judiciary formulates legal precedents, the subsequent administrators of justice could be guided by. Notwithstanding the fact that the Judiciary is appointed by the executive and the laws are enacted by the legislature, the constitution of a country, administered by the West Minister System, grants the Judiciary the freedom of independence to be free and independent in the affairs of the administration of justice. By reason of these and many other pragmatic factors, the Judiciary can be construed and felt to be more supreme than the Parliament and its majority. Hence, it can play the role of final juridical resort and the role of the most practical jurisprudential source, when there is a country-gripped crisis, germinated in the Parliament as a result of the bifurcation-confusion of the government and opposition.
Parliament majority confusion
Majority minority are outdated concepts. In the international legal terminology they have lost their existential depth. Their worth has been questioned by many international legal experts. International legal luminaries pose the question, “Democracy for whom? For the majority?, for the minority? Or for both?” The democracy is,…. not guarding majority rights to the brutal violation of the rights of the minority.
The defense of the majority rights is no more recognized, as an unquestionable foundation, to trespass the rights of the minority. In fact, the misinterpreting of this false democracy, rooted in the contaminated concept of majority, has been well used and is still being abused by many elements of vested interest, to transgress the rights of the minorities in many corners of the globe. The democracy, in the contemporaneous globe, is not expounded as the democracy for the majority. Democracy is meant for all. It is determined by the final result of granting development, progress, peace and justice to all.
Now, when it falls within the precinct of the Parliament and within the orbit of the right of the country-rule, the contents, inked above, under the rubric “Reason, Logics and Commonsense” would flex its muscle so powerfully to inject a right comprehension of the crisis.
It alludes to the authentic ground that painfully burns. It points the finger to the weed, which does not allow the seed to crack, sprout and grow in to a beautiful flowering tree. The periods of torture suffered by many countries vary.
The political and economic devastation, Sri Lanka underwent and terribly suffered is the best example of this. In such countries, no parliamentarian majority has made any commendable and positive contribution, to cause the seed to crack, sprout and grow in to a flowering tree.
In the name of democracy and the norms of constitution, the people of such countries were waiting for five years or more, to elect another set of majority, the members of which, they anticipated to cause to crack the seed, so that it could become a gigantic tree with blossoming flowers.
To be continued
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