Lawyers' Collective Denounces Attempts to Postpone Elections

COLOMBO (News 1st); The Lawyers' Collective Sri Lanka issued a statement today clarifying the facts surrounding the proposals to postpone the elections.

The statement was signed by President’s Counsels Upul Jayasuriya, Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, Dinal Phillips, Saliya Pieris, S.T. Jayanaga, Upul Kumarapperuma and
Prof. Deepika Udagama.

In the statement, the Lawyers' Collective Sri Lanka said the mass people's uprising, the Aragalaya, was a recall of the mandate given to all parliamentarians, particularly the members forming the two-third majority in parliament. The people signaled a
complete lack of public confidence in the head of the executive and the government of the day.

The current President having taken office in this context is duty bound to uphold democracy and surrender to the sovereignty of the people.

The statement highlighted that one of his key tasks ought to have been to restore legitimacy to these institutions of government without delay.

Instead, the President
refused to hold the local government election in 2023 and is steamrolling a legislative agenda that
is repressive and authoritarian with the support of a legislative majority that has lost its legitimacy.

Article 30(2) states that the office of the President shall be for a period of 5 years. Article 62(2) states that the term of any Parliament shall be 5 years. Any change to the Constitution to extend
the terms of one or either of these organs of the State requires a constitutional amendment.

Such a constitutional amendment would no doubt require a two thirds majority in Parliament and a referendum of the People because it seeks to change the way in which the sovereignty of the people is expressed.

The Lawyers' Collective Sri Lanka stressed that it would be an amendment to fundamentally change the basic structure
of the constitution.

The statement added that such a proposal completely undermines the sovereignty of the people, is made in bad
faith and in ignorance or deliberate dismissal of the Constitution.

The statement raises the question: Whether a two-thirds majority in Parliament and a 50% plus one majority of the People can make ANY amendment of the Constitution. Is not the amending process governed also by the principle of 'constitutional morality'?