{"id":13450,"date":"2012-12-10T19:55:55","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T00:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=13450"},"modified":"2012-12-10T20:25:10","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T01:25:10","slug":"does-our-leader-of-the-opposition-fit-in-with-the-rulers-or-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=13450","title":{"rendered":"Does Our Leader of the Opposition fit in With the Rulers or the People?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarath de Alwis<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The rot begins, when wild actions are received calmly by society. These are people that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic passion or foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth\u2026 These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse, of becoming one vast vision of imbecility.” <\/em><\/p>\n

G. K. Chesterton\u2014Mad Official<\/strong><\/p>\n

We the people have now been told by the Leader of the Opposition that our present constitution does not have three pillars of power. And we the people are not all astonished. As reported in The Island of Dec. 7 Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has said: “Most people were saying here that there were three pillars of power but they are wrong.
\n
\nThe people are sovereign under the Constitution. Whether you like it or not this Constitution was created based on the theories of J. R. Jayewardene and not Montesquieu.”<\/p>\n

It is kind of Mr. Wickremasinghe to have reminded us of the wide chasm between the practical common sense of his Uncle JRJ and the misty idealism of Montesquieu. Mr. Wickremesinghe is cruelly right. His latest constitutional doctrine explains the title of this piece, \u2018We the People\u2019.<\/p>\n

We the people need to learn that \u2018they the representatives \u2018are the ones who matter. That is if we the people do not wish to “go off our heads en masse and become one vast vision of imbecility “as the English Essayist Chesterton predicted.<\/p>\n

The preamble of our Constitution has no reference to \u2018We the People.” The Preamble of our constitution is clear and unambiguous. It says, “We the freely elected representatives of the people of Sri Lanka in pursuance of such mandate humbly , acknowledging our obligations to our people and gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain and preserve their rights and privileges so that the Dignity and Freedom of the individual may be assured, Just, Social, Economic, and Cultural Order attained, the Unity of the Country restored , and Concord established with other Nations, do hereby adopt and enact this Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.”<\/p>\n

JRJ knew his onions. He certainly knew the role of the people and the more humble and yet more rewarding role of the elected representatives. The preamble of our Constitution has recognized the right of \u2018the representatives to act on behalf of us the people\u2019. Thus the dreamy notion of a people giving unto themselves some abstract set of ideals of which they had no idea to begin with needs to be banished from our public discourse on men, women and matters.<\/p>\n

The authoritative pronouncement of Mr. Wickremesinghe brooks no contradiction. That said, this writer believes that Montesquieu should not be dismissed altogether. It seems that the French philosopher may have had some idea of leaders such as both Mr. wickremesinghe and his uncle Jayewardene.<\/p>\n

Montesquieu has had the remarkable prescience to say something that anticipates later events. In The Spirit of Laws he says, “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.”<\/p>\n

So that raises the question: “Where does our Leader of the Opposition fit in? With the oligarchy or the citizenry? There is no doubt that his constitutional interpretation is accurate. Sadly, it is also obdurate. It is accurate in its legality. It is obdurate in its morality.<\/p>\n

The great Indian constitutional lawyer Nanny Palikhivalla says, “It is important that citizens must obey the law. It is even more important that citizens must obey the high standards of decency which are not enforced by the law but are the hall mark of a truly civilized and mature democracy.”<\/p>\n

We read many legal scholars writing on abstract principles of law where appeals are made to interpret the articles of the Constitution in terms of the spirit of its preamble. It is these learned treatises that prompted this writer to read the preamble and grasp the explicit reference to the representatives of the people who adopted and enacted the constitution.<\/p>\n

Now this makes sense out of many things that I did not understand. Now I see the logic of permitting our representatives to sell their duty free vehicle permits; the logic of permitting them to oppose the enactment of legislation permitting the right to information. I would even go so far as to hold that the right to information would be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The reformation questioned the infallibility of the Pope. The Magna Charta questioned the divine right of the King. In Sri Lanka, on Dec. 22, 1982 President J. R. Jayewardene questioned the wisdom of “we the people” in a referendum. The people I presume conceded the infallibility of JRJ and also endorsed his divine right to rule a further six years without a general election! Nothing that followed this momentous event has equaled the travesty of that brilliant constitutional innovation.<\/p>\n

In great democracies, leaders of Opposition have opposed hardened hearts of rulers and sought to temper them with reason and understanding. A democracy needs an Opposition.<\/p>\n

We need an Opposition in Parliament that does not desert the ship because it cannot tame the winds that propel it.<\/p>\n

It is with a sense of sad but sure resignation that we the people have to reconcile ourselves to the inevitability that what is technically possible is allowable.<\/p>\n

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By Sarath de Alwis “The rot begins, when wild actions are received calmly by society. These are people that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic passion or foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth\u2026 These nations …<\/p>\n

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