19th Amendment: The Wins, the Losses and the In-betweens

Abstract

This research brief seeks to provide an insight into how the final outcome of 19A fulfils the key expectations of democratising and depoliticising governance. The enactment of 19A is certainly a watershed event in Sri Lanka's constitutional history. It delivered on some of the key promises made under the 100-Day Plan by limiting the authoritarian scope of the President's powers. It restored the term limits of the presidency, reduced the scope of presidential immunity, and circumscribed presidential powers in making appointments to the Cabinet. These amendments may be regarded as 'Wins'.

However, 19A falls short of meeting the key expectation on depoliticising appointments to important public institutions and to high offices. It fails to ensure a composition of the Constitutional Council that is for the most part independent of strong political influence. This shortfall may be treated as a Loss'.

The revised 19A also provides for a hybrid scheme of power sharing between the President and Prime Minister in selecting appointments and subject-assignments to the cabinet. On the one hand, this scheme could give substance to past jurisprudence on the President's accountability to Parliament and could democratise governance through checks and balances. Yet on the other hand, the new scheme could give rise to dysfunctional deadlocks that deteriorate governance. This scheme may treated as an 'In-between'.

19A is therefore a mixed bag of wins, losses and in-betweens. It is a promising yet imperfect constitutional enactment, perhaps befitting an imperfect yet promising democracy