Constitutional reforms ready by next week

7 March 2015 04:48 am

The draft bill, providing for constitutional amendments, will be ready next week to be presented in Parliament, informed sources said yesterday.

The All-Party Committee on Constitutional Reforms met yesterday to discuss the present status of the new legislation. The Legal Draftsman's Department has already put the proposed amendments in a legal format.

It will be referred to the Supreme Court to determine whether it should be approved by the people at a referendum before being taken up in the House. Political party representatives, including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, parliamentarians G.L. Peiris, Rishard Bathiudeen, Vijitha Herath and Deputy Education Minister V. Radhakrishnan attended the all-party committee on constitutional reforms.

The committee meets on Wednesday and Thursday to finalise these matters.

It also discussed the proposal for the enactment of electoral reforms and will meet Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya on March 10.

Members suggested that consensus be reached among the parties to enact reforms, but to shelve their implementation till the conclusion of the general elections.

In this case, it was suggested to have the election, planned for this year, under the current system.

The second suggestion is to conduct even the upcoming election under a new system rather than delaying its implementation for whatever reason.
The third idea was to defer the evolution of electoral reforms to a later date.(Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera)