{"id":70149,"date":"2020-09-03T23:54:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T04:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=70149"},"modified":"2020-09-03T23:54:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T04:54:22","slug":"sri-lankan-govt-appoints-expert-committee-under-senior-lawyer-romesh-de-silva-to-draft-new-constitution-while-gazetting-draft-of-20th-constitutional-amendment-to-reverse-preceding-19th-amendment-whic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=70149","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lankan Govt Appoints  Expert Committee Under Senior Lawyer Romesh de Silva to Draft New Constitution While Gazetting Draft of 20th Constitutional Amendment To Reverse Preceding 19th Amendment Which Clipped Presidential Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By<\/p>\n<p>Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Cabinet has set up an experts\u2019 committee to draft Sri Lanka\u2019s new Constitution, even as the government gazetted the draft of the 20th Amendment that would reverse the preceding 19th Amendment, a 2015 legislation that clipped certain executive powers of the President.<\/p>\n<p>The move follows the ruling Rajapaksa brothers\u2019 poll pledge to abolish the 19th Amendment, introduced by the former government. After a securing a comfortable two-thirds majority in the August general elections, the government took up the promise swiftly.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In his inaugural address to Parliament on August 20, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that Sri Lanka would draft a new Constitution, jettisoning the 19th Amendment that sought to strengthen Parliament and independent institutions, besides curbing presidential powers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Two-step process<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s amendments to the Constitution will be carried out in two-steps, Minister Udaya Gammanpila told the weekly Cabinet press briefing on Thursday. While the 20th Amendment would \u201ccorrect anomalies\u201d in the current Constitution, a completely new Constitution would replace it soon after, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, on examination of the draft amendment, the Attorney General told the government that it could be passed with a two-thirds parliamentary majority, and did not require a national referendum.<\/p>\n<p>Government sources said the public would have about two weeks to go through the draft and petition the Supreme Court if they have objections.<\/p>\n<p>Once the Supreme Court gives its determination on the draft to Parliament, it would be taken up for debate in the House, a senior official told The Hindu, requesting anonymity. Asked what time frame the government was looking at to complete the process, the official said: \u201cAs soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The committee tasked with drafting the new Constitution will be led by senior lawyer Romesh de Silva.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton70149\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D70149&amp;text=Sri%20Lankan%20Govt%20Appoints%20%20Expert%20Committee%20Under%20Senior%20Lawyer%20Romesh%20de%20Silva%20to%20Draft%20New%20Constitution%20While...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Meera Srinivasan The Cabinet has set up an experts\u2019 committee to draft Sri Lanka\u2019s new Constitution, even as the government gazetted the draft of the 20th Amendment that would reverse the preceding 19th Amendment, a 2015 legislation that clipped certain executive powers of the President. The move follows the ruling Rajapaksa brothers\u2019 poll pledge &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=70149\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Sri Lankan Govt Appoints  Expert Committee Under Senior Lawyer Romesh de Silva to Draft New Constitution While Gazetting Draft of 20th Constitutional Amendment To Reverse Preceding 19th Amendment Which Clipped Presidential Powers&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70149"}],"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=70149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70150,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70149\/revisions\/70150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}