{"id":6724,"date":"2012-05-31T21:22:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T01:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=6724"},"modified":"2012-06-01T06:48:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-01T10:48:27","slug":"priests-from-any-religion-to-be-debarred-from-contesting-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=6724","title":{"rendered":"Priests from any religion to be debarred from contesting parliament Elections?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by D.B.S. Jeyaraj<\/strong><\/p>\n

U<\/strong>nited National Party(UNP) Parliamentarian& & Bar Association (BASL) president Wijedasa Rajapakshe wants priests debarred from becoming MP’s.<\/p>\n

He has with the consent of Opposition & UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted a private members bill seeking a Constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n

The proposed amendment will debar any political party or group from nominating a priest of any religion to contest Parliamentary elections.
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\nThe proposed bill wants Article 91 of the Constitution to be amended by adding clause Article 91 (H) referring to “Priest of any religion”.<\/p>\n

The private members bill also seeks to prevent any priest from any religion being appointed to Parliament as a Member on the national list<\/p>\n

Wijedasa Rajapakshe says” this amendment is for the purpose of maintaining and preserving religious dignity and holiness of all religions.”<\/p>\n

Rajapakshe has emphasized that the practice of accommodating priests of any religion in parliament was detrimental to national unity.<\/p>\n

Wijedasa Rajapakshe says the clergy playing politics with national issues is a major impediment to national reconciliation.<\/p>\n

While the bill refers to priests from any religion from becoming MP’s in the past only Buddhist Priests have been or are Parliamentarians.<\/p>\n

The first Buddhist priest to enter Parliament was Ven Baddegama Samitha Thero from Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) who was elected in 2001<\/p>\n

Later the “Sinhala Buddhist party” Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has had many Buddhist priests elected &appointed to Parliament in 2004 & in 2010<\/p>\n

The JHU national organizer is opposed to any move to deny the party the right to field Buddhist monks at future elections at any level.<\/p>\n

Wijedasa Rajapakshe says Buddhist monks as MP’s, hadn’t prevented deterioration of parliamentary standards or changed the political culture.<\/p>\n

Buddhist priest MP’s had been treated shabbily both in & outside parliament with some being attacked in the House itself, Rajapakshe points out<\/p>\n

Political parties were not likely to decide against fielding priests at elections on their own volition says UNP MP Wijedasa Rajapakshe<\/p>\n

Therefore he says it is the responsibility of parliament to bring in required Constitutional amendments&keep the clergy out of parliament.<\/p>\n

Wijedasa Rajapakshe wants a healthy debate on the issue of priests entering Parliament & hopes his bill will be supported by all parties<\/p>\n

(This is a bundle of tweets posted on Twitter by DBS Jeyaraj)<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj United National Party(UNP) Parliamentarian& & Bar Association (BASL) president Wijedasa Rajapakshe wants priests debarred from becoming MP’s. He has with the consent of Opposition & UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe submitted a private members bill seeking a Constitutional amendment. The proposed amendment will debar any political party or group from nominating a priest …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Priests from any religion to be debarred from contesting parliament Elections?’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6724"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6747,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions\/6747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}