CPA Quashes Its Own Objection To Fonseka Appointment

The Centre for Policy Alternatives‘ (CPA) foreign-funded ‘Public Interest Litigation’ and advocacy programme in jeapordy

February 16, 2016 

The CPA has suppressed the communiqué its Legal Department has drafted regarding Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka’s recent appointment to parliament as a ‘National List MP’.

Colombo Telegraph learns that CPA’s Legal Department had drafted a communiqué in line with its long-standing position against appointing persons “not included in the National List published under Article 99A of the Constitution”. However, this has since been suppressed, Colombo Telegraph learns.

In 2004 the CPA challenged the right of Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe to occupy National List Seats of the UPFA as Members of the 13th Parliament, due to the fact that neither of the two were included in the National List published in the Government Gazette prior to the General Election of 2nd April 2004, under Article 99A of the Constitution. Neither had their names been included in the Nomination Papers of the UPFA.

“In addition to Article 99A of the Constitution, the Parliamentary Elections Act No. 1 of 1981 also contains certain statutory obligations that must be followed in replacing vacated parliamentary seats. In particular, CPA wished to draw the Commissioner’s attention to Section 64 (5) of the said Act, which seems to suggest that upon vacation of a national list seat, the secretary of a political party or the leader of an independent group may nominate any member of such party or group to replace the vacancy,” the CPA said at that time.

The CPA also wrote to the Elections Commissioner based on media reports to the effect the two would enter Parliament through the UPFA’s National List.         Read More