Appeal Court prohibitory order sought on passing Constitutional changes As an “Urgent Bill”

A case has been filed in the Appeal Court seeking a prohibitory order on passing the Constitutional changes as an `Urgent Bill’.

The argument that Constitutional changes cannot be made through an ‘Urgent Bill’ was presented by Dharshan Weerasekara in a paper that appears in the foreign policy journal of 2012

It has been noted that the Constitution sets out a regular procedure for enacting Constitutional amendments, and that procedure gives citizens an opportunity, albeit a brief and limited one, to challenge proposed amendments before the Supreme Court.  Citizens have this same right with respect to any proposed new law

Weerasekera’s lengthy essay, with examples, take readers through the logic of his assessment exploring the fundamental nature of using an Urgent Bill.

In a nutshell, his argument is that since the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, it stands to reason that if citizens get an opportunity to challenge other laws before they are enacted, they ought to have that right more than ever when it comes to proposed changes to the Constitution.

Weerasekera’s contention is that the “Urgent Bills” provision allows the President and the Cabinet to bypass the normal procedure for enacting new laws, which means citizens do not have a chance to challenge the proposed law, at the Bill stage, even to the limited extent they are normally allowed, he

All that is needed to pass an “urgent Bill” is an endorsement by the Cabinet that the Bill in question is “urgent in the national interest,” and a two-thirds majority in Parliament on the day the vote is taken on the Bill, he says.

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