Is it a judgement to please the UNP and the West ?

I studied Constitutional law for my Barristers Exam in UK,and I have never read a judgment as shocking as the one recently made by an Appeal  Court of Justice in Sri Lanka.  I have listened to many learned Constitutional lawyers and Academics. The Law is for the people not to please some higher authority. 

The Constitutional Law is special,  as there could be several interpretations on the same issue.

The recent interim order given by an Appeal Court in Sri Lanka is in my opinion  flawed. The judges had gone on the assumption that the no confidence motion with 122 digital votes against the Prime Minister and his cabinet of Ministers  is legally acceptable.

The judges are after all human beings, they must have listened to the Television and read the papers and learnt about the much talked about “bahutharaya in the parliament”, and after a light study of  the no confidence motion with 122 digital votes and no opposing votes, accepted it on its  face value  as legal,  and the Prime Minister and his Cabinet of Ministers  sworn in by the President of Sri Lanka as illegal as it did not have the much talked, “Bahutharaya in Parliament”.

But I argue that the no confidence motion  against the Prime Minister and his Cabinet of Ministers is not legally acceptable.

The judges of the appeal Court had failed  in the first instance to  examine the legal value of the No Confidence motion. A parliamentary session cannot function even without a quorum. If there is no quorum no serious matters such as legislation or even a No Confidence Motion  can be moved.  

Now in this particular case in Sri Lanka a no confidence motion had been passed with 122 digital votes of the parliamentarians present at the parliamentary session. But the judges did not apparently examine the background to the No Confidence Motion.

If they did  they would have observed that the Parliamentary  Session at which the No Confidence Motion had been passed was not legally constituted, as the benches of the Government parliamentarians at the time of taking the vote on the No Confidence Motion were empty, and therefore the Speaker of the House had no legal right to have accepted a No Confidence Motion at that session.

I argue that the No Confidence Motion said to have been passed with 122 digital votes was illegal and not acceptable.

Firstly, because at that session the benches of the government side of the Parliament was empty, and the Speaker of the house should have ruled out the passing of an important No Confidence Motion in the absence of the parliamentarians of the Government.

Secondly at that Session in question the No Confidence Motion was not presented following the normal parliamentary procedure. A No Confidence Motion against a government is a serious matter even though the Appeal Court seems to have ignored it.

Thirdly several no confidence motion in a not legally constituted parliamentary session had been passed in the absence of the parliamentarians of the Government, which is also not acceptable as there should be a sufficiently long time between two  no confidence motions passed on the same issue.

The above highlights the aberration of the law by the Appeal Court hastily taking a decision to issue an interim order stopping the Government from functioning , which is anti democratic being a decision that affects the welfare of the people. (A people who had gone through financial and economic  suffering due to financial mismanagement of the previous government of  Ranil Wickramasinghe and his UNP and allied Ministers).

An Appeal Court in my opinion has no right to even temporarily stop the legal and  democratic function of a government, which is  trying to put order into disorder created by the Previous government and give the people their much desired economic  relief.

The Government of Mahinda Rajapakse legally sworn in by the President is neither a dictatorship, nor a military government , but a legally constituted democratic government with a Prime Minister and Ministers popular amoung the majority of the people of the country.

Therefore can the Apeal Court Justify the legal correctness of their decision to issue an interim order stopping the functioning of the Government ?.

In view of my observations expressed above the judgement of the Appeal Court and its arguments to justify their judgement that,

“This Court is mindful that wide powers of governance of the Country are vested with the Prime Minister, Cabinet of Ministers and the other Ministers by virtue of various provisions of the Constitution as well as other laws. Thus, whoever holding such office is required to make important decisions which will affect the whole country at large both locally and internationally. Most of such decisions may not be reversible. This Court is also mindful of the damage that would be caused if this Court having granted interim relief to restrain the Respondents from functioning in their public offices and then proceed to subsequently dismiss this application refusing to issue the remedies prayed for by the Petitioners.”,

-are not valid acceptable arguments  to stop a democratically and constitutionally constituted government functioning for the welfare of the people.

These are arguments one may expect  to hear from rabid Marxist politicians,   and not from learned judges. Therefore the judgment of the Appeal Court in my opinion is  flawed  and not acceptable in  law.

Hence the Apeal Court should revise their decision and at least allow the legally constituted Government of  Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse to function normally, until it takes a more wise decision on the 12^th December,2018.