Rajiva Wijesinha

“ The 17th amendment was a hasty piece of legislation, which has no basis in any known constitutional principle. It confuses a Westminster style limitation on the appointing powers of the head of government with what usually obtains under Executive Presidencies to limit such powers.
In short, when an Executive President is elected, it is his prerogative to make appointments, though it is both understandable and desirable that there should be limitations on what could turn out to be arbitrary appointments. ”

“ The second reason for reverting to a constituency based system is to ensure that all areas in the country have someone to look after their interests. This will be good for the areas, it will also be good for the MPs who will have much more to do that will translate into concrete action and readily measurable outcomes. This will also help reduce the size of the Cabinet since, while all MPs seek some sort of additional authority, this can be targeted at the development of areas which they know they have to excel in to secure re-election. ”

“ And as we have seen, inevitably all the choices are representative of a Colombo elite, perhaps understandable given the concentration of what purports to be intellectual capital in the capital, but in no sense fulfilling the representative requirement of any body that makes decisions on behalf of the nation. ”