No need for PSC to scrap 13-A - JVP

by Dasun Edirisinghe-June 21, 2013, 9:14 pm 

The JVP yesterday claimed that the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to change the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was not necessary and therefore it would therefore boycott it.

JVP Parliamentary Group Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that they would however be ready to discuss it openly if the government announces its stance on the 13th Amendment.

Amending or scrapping the 13th amendment to the Constitution had been discussed extensively at at the All Party Representative Conference (APRC), Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and government negotiated talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for last six years, MP Dissanayake said, claiming that the proposed PSC process would amount to an utter waste of funds, energy and time.

"We will not participate in any PSC on this matter as we have bitter experience at the PSC appointed to impeach the former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake," Dissanayake said, adding that the SLFP members had not heeded others’ voice. He pointed out that the government had not cared to appoint a PSC when it introduced the 18th Amendment to the Constitution doing away with the presidential term limit. It has been brought in as an urgent Bill, he said.

The JVP MP said that their party continued to stand by their stance on the need to scrap the 13th Amendment and the provincial council system.

Meanwhile Leader of the House, Irrigation and Water Resource Management Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has said the alternatives to the 13th Amendment could be effected only through the PSC to be appointed and all parties had been invited to attend it.

Minister Silva said that the JVP’s opinion too was very important to take a final decision.