We discussed earlier how to make constitutions as a natural basis for solving the perennial and recurring problems of a country.
But making a document called a constitution is an act that can be done without being real. This is done when the rulers want to carry out their duties in a more arbitrary manner. A key element of a fraudulent constitution is the creation of a constitution aimed at displacing the common law accepted by the people of the country. Such fraudulent legislation is designed to make it easier to exercise their power without restraint, with the ultimate goal being to abolish the sovereignty of the people, in whole or in part. The purpose of a fraudulent constitution is to make the citizenship of the citizen an invalid coin.
Its meaning can be further clarified by discussing the above point with examples. The constitutions created in 1972 and 1978 fall into this category of fraudulent documents. The purpose of the 1972 Constitution was to break the legal framework for the administration of the country and to make the right of its administration directly under the control of the executive. It was set up by severely limiting the powers of the civil service bureaucracy and abolishing the powers of the top officials of the civil service, the secretaries around each ministry, and handing over that power to the ministers.
Thus, arbitrary political decisions broadened the scope for the politician to manipulate civil liberties by obstructing the exercise of law and order in the civil service. As a result, the 1972 Constitution was not created for the betterment of the country and the people, but to create a civil service built around the politician for narrow political gain. To this day, the Sri Lankan people have suffered severely from the ill effects of that constitution.
The 1978 Constitution was created to create a system of government based solely on arbitrariness on a larger scale than in 1972. It is one of the foremost fraudulent documents. There is as much difference between arbitrary rule and the rule of law as there is between heaven and earth. A genuine constitution of nature is aimed at largely eliminating the possibility of the ruler acting arbitrarily.
Linked to it is the great concept that national wealth, which can be controlled by power and authority, should be used only for the welfare of the country and the people. The so-called 1978 Constitution, which was created with the ulterior motive of breaking this grand concept and fulfilling narrow opportunistic interests, created a state of maximum disintegration in the whole of Sri Lanka. This catastrophic situation led to the creation of this fraudulent document by its founder, JR Jayewardene, in the belief that by pursuing a policy of maximum arbitrariness, he could achieve any number of goals he had hoped for.
Mr. Jayewardene’s main goal was to stay in power as long as possible. He served as prime minister for five years, but his goal was to remain in office for the rest of his life. The biggest obstacle was the electoral system in Sri Lanka. Thus, the people elect their leader and their government by ballot, and the period during which they can remain in power was accepted as limited. That recognition was enshrined in the Constitution at the time of independence. Thus, one of the basic tenets of the world’s democratic tradition, the idea of appointing a government for a limited period of time, was enshrined in the Constitution. Realizing that the abolition of that constitutional attitude was an essential condition for him to remain in power for a long time, Jayewardene took advantage of his fraudulent constitution, the 1978 Constitution.
There are a number of other things that Jayewardene wanted. It is to limit the power of the judiciary. The judiciary has traditionally been tasked with deciding the legitimacy of decisions made by a government. This is one of the deepest core concepts of the rule of law. The rule of law cannot exist without a judiciary that empowers its independence. On the other hand, the existence of a ruler cannot co-exist between a judiciary that declares its independence in such a powerful way and a ruler who thinks he should have all the power. Either the ruler must accept the idea that his judiciary is subject to independence and thereby allow that domination to prevail. Or the independence of the judiciary must be suppressed in order to assert its sovereignty.
The ability of the judiciary to suppress its independence is determined by the extent to which the people of the country have an established attitude towards the independence of the judiciary. This was explained by a judge who has served on the Supreme Court of Australia. He said that if the executive interfered in the independence of the judiciary, how would the judiciary protect itself from it? Although Mr. Jayewardene wanted to abolish the judiciary completely, there was an obstacle to do so at that time.
That is because there was a certain ideology in the middle class of Sri Lanka about the independence of the judiciary. Therefore, he was not able to completely destroy the independence of the judiciary. There was an obstacle in the society itself. In doing so, he undermined the jurisdiction of the judiciary by imposing various restrictions on the judicial role of the judiciary and the judiciary. For example, preventing the court from receiving the required amount of money spent on the judiciary can hamper the judicial process. Neville Samarakoon, the then Chief Justice of the Judiciary, was able to thwart the qualitative change he was trying to make by obstructing the judiciary from paying the necessary expenses for the appointment of new judges at that time. He was able to interfere with the independence of the judiciary by interfering in the appointment of judges in various ways, as well as by spreading various fears in the circumstances of the time.
The independence of the judiciary is largely tied to the independence of all corporations in the administration of justice. For example, if the criminal police do not act properly, the judiciary may lose the ability to hear serious criminal cases and administer justice. Our evidence-based legal system is largely tied to police investigators who collect evidence. By influencing the police, that is, by obstructing the administration of justice, the judiciary can be severely weakened. Mr. Jayewardene’s actions based on his constitution were a program to weaken the judicial system in Sri Lanka in this manner. That fraudulent purpose was achieved through the fraudulent document of 1978, which allowed it.
By the year 2000, the devastation caused to the country by this constitution had begun to be felt by everyone in the country. Therefore, the idea that the Constitution should be abolished had become an accepted opinion throughout the country. This view was instrumental in bringing Chandrika Bandaranaike’s government to power. But after coming to power, that task was avoided. The ruler was reluctant to give up because this fraudulent constitution would help the ruler to wield more power. However, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted in an attempt to independently appoint high-ranking officials to the country’s major corporations in order to exert public pressure to reduce that power to some extent. But a clash between that premise and the power of the executive president was inevitable. Later, the 18th Amendment eliminated even the limited changes to the 17th Amendment. In the same way, the 19th Amendment sought to revive the 17th Amendment, but with the passage of the 20th Amendment, it expanded the scope for the President’s arbitrariness by gaining more powers than ever before.
The constitutions that are being drafted now are likely to further increase arbitrariness and create an environment within the country where the rule of law is at a minimum or where such rule is completely non-existent.
There is a huge difference between white and black, between this tradition and the creation of constitutions to solve the problem of the country. The arbitrary existence of the ruler of the corrupt constitution is widening. True constitutions expand the intervention of the people and the rule of law and make the conduct of the ruler responsibilities within a legal framework.