Permitting Defeated Candidates As MPs: People’s Sovereignty Under Siege

By Pujitha Sumanasekara –September 27, 2015 

On 20th Feb 2011 Ranil Wickremesinghe, then the opposition leader writing to the Sunday Times said, “We cannot allow the people’s sovereignty to be disregarded or usurped. In the past, whenever the people’s sovereignty was at risk, the Parliament of this country always reasserted the power of the people. The Parliament of Sri Lanka today has a duty to the people of this country to ensure that our sovereignty is safeguarded.”

Yet this was what exactly had happened in 1988 when the then President Jayawardena brought in the National List provision to Constitution through the 14th Amendment, usurping the sovereign rights of the people.

A Constitution is a set of laws that specifically apply to the government. A properly constructed constitution limits the power of a government by specifying which actions they are allowed to take, and disallowing all others.

In a modern democracies where immutable republican principles of RREPRESENTATIVE DEMOCARY is recognised, no government is empowered to takeaway the sovereign rights of the people by any means. The Constitution of the Republic of Sri Lanka, wholly accepts this principle and has enacted that the sovereignty is in the people, which include the Legislative power, Executive power, Judicial power, Franchise and inalienable fundamental rights (Article 3 and 4).

Having fully recognised this principal, the Constitution of Sri Lanka also imposes a blanket ban on the legislature against enacting laws that would affect people’s sovereign rights, unless a mandate for any such action is obtained from the people at a referendum (Article 83).

This prohibition is meant to respect the people’s inalienable sovereign rights entrenched in the Constitution, which shall not be changed like any other written law. On this point of constitution making, the Chief Justice of Israel Aharon Barak elaborates as follows.                   Read More