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By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, May 10: The Sri Lankan Supreme court’s landmark judgement last week that Minister of State for Tourism Diana Gamage was legally ineligible to serve as a Member of Parliament on the ground that she was not a Sri Lankan citizen raises some crucial questions.
The Supreme Court gave the ruling after hearing an appeal filed by social activist Oshala Herath challenging the dismissal by the Appeal Court of his petition against Diana’s membership in Parliament.
Diana, who came to Parliament on the National List of the main opposition Samagi Janatha Balawegaya (SJB ) began to support the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. Her support for the government continued after Ranil Wickremesinghe took office as President. She was also appointed State Minister of Tourism. She earned a dubious name for her ridiculous speeches about the need for a night economy and cannabis cultivation.
Former Colombo District Member of Parliament Mujibur Rahman of SJB has been appointed to fill the vacancy in Parliament caused by Diana’s disqualification. He resigned from his position as a Member of Parliament to contest the mayoralty of Colombo in the local government elections which were scheduled to be held in the early part of the last year and which was later postponed indefinitely.
This is an opportunity for Rahman to come back to Parliament as the local government elections are not likely to be held in the near future.
The main charge against Diana was that despite being a foreign citizen, she was nominated to parliament. In a statement to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) earlier last year, she said that she had renounced her British citizenship after 2014 by handing in documents saying she no longer needed it. She was not a Sri Lankan citizen either. But she had been a Member of Parliament for almost four years without being a citizen of any country.
The important question is how this was allowed. The Supreme Court has specifically pointed out in the judgment that very few people suspected of violating immigration laws have been given special privileges in this country.
Oshala Herath had alleged that Diana held two British passports while obtaining two Sri Lankan diplomatic passports and submitted forged documents, including a fake birth certificate, to obtain them. It is important to note that the Colombo Magistrate’s Court said at that time that there was sufficient evidence to support that Diana had submitted a fake national identity card and birth certificate to obtain a Sri Lankan passport.
Diana is the second MP in the current Parliament to be stripped of membership based on a Supreme Court ruling. Batticaloa District Member of Parliament Naseer Ahmed was disqualified by the Supreme Court late last year for supporting the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government’s 2021 budget contrary to the decision of his party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).
When Naseer Ahmed lost his seat, it was thought that the seats of many other members would also be at risk because in the current parliament, many members of all parties except the National People’s Power (NPP) have broken away from their parties and are functioning independently within the House.
Although it was expected that party leaderships would take legal action against these members on the basis of the judgment against Ahamad. But nothing happened.
After the judgment against Diana, the legality of the SJB-led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa was also questioned. Minister Kanchana Wijesekara said in Parliament last Wednesday that anyone can approach the court asking whether the SJB could remain in Parliament.
” One could question whether Diana who has been declared as a non – citizen of this country could register a political party. One could also question whether the MOU signed by SJB General Secretary with Diana is legally valid. Further the validity of nomination papers signed by Diana for certain MPs is also questionable,” the Minister said.
The SJB appointed Diana as a Nnational List MP in return for transferring control of Ape Jathika Peramuna (AJP ), a party run by her and her husband Sanaka de Silva (one – time aide to General Sarath Fonseka) to the breakaway UNP faction headed by Sajith Premadasa. It is because of this that these questions are raised after her disqualification.
But Mahinda Deshapriya, former chairman of the Election Commission, has given the answer to these question clearly than the politicians of SJB. Having said that there is no legal barrier to a non-citizen to register a political party, he noted that Sri Lankan law only prevents non- citizens from voting in elections and becoming members of Parliament.
Diana was never General Secretary of AJP and she never signed the nomination papers of SJB. AJP was formed by the late Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Suriyarachchi who broke from the political alliance with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The General Secretary of the party was Ruwan Ferdinandas, a confidante of Samaraweera’s. Diana’s husband took over the post later, Deshapriya explained.
Meanwhile, before Diana, actress Geetha Kumarasinghe lost her seat as a member of Parliament through a court ruling over an issue related to foreign citizenship. Kumarasinghe was a Sri Lankan citizen as well as a citizen of Switzerland when she contested in the Galle district as the candidate of Mahinda Rajapaksa-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA ) in the August 2015 general election.
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed by the ‘Yahapalanaya’ government headed by Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe at that time, prohibited dual citizens from contesting elections.
Now there is an expectation in some political circles that the issue of dual citizenship in Parliament is receiving fresh public attention in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU ) President Udaya Gammanpila said that when he asked the Immigration Department for a list of names of those who held dual citizenship using the Right to Information a few years ago, the Immigration Controller had claimed that they did not have a mechanism to find that out.
Originally introduced by the ‘Yahapalanaya ‘ government to curtail the powers of the Executive Presidency, the 19th Amendment barred dual citizens from contesting elections. Later, the 20th Amendment, brought in by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government to increase the powers of the President, allowed dual citizens to contest elections again.
The 21st Amendment, introduced in October 2022 by President Wickremesinghe after the Rajapaksas were ousted in a popular uprising two years earlier, again prohibited dual citizens from contesting elections.
More than a year-and-a-half has passed since the 21 st.,Amendment came into effect, but no Member of Parliament deemed to have dual citizenship has resigned. The United Republic Front (URF) leader Champika Ranawaka publicly stated at the time that ten members of the current parliament are dual citizens. No Member of Parliament has come forward to resign accepting dual citizenship to preserve the dignity of their office.
All Members of the current Parliament were elected at the August 2020 general election. At that time, the 19th Amendment which had a provision prohibiting dual citizens from contesting was in force. It is obvious that the MPs, who are said to hold dual citizenship, had concealed the truth when they filed nomination papers to contest the elections.
They had hidden the truth not only from the Election Commission but also from the leaders of their party. Or it must be said the leaders nominated them as candidates despite knowing the truth.
The major issue in this matter is the problem facing the State institutions involved, including Parliament.
When Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena was questioned by the media about the possibility that dual citizens had been elected or appointed to Parliament he said it was not Parliament’s responsibility, but that of the Election Commission.
But Nimal Punchihewa, chairman of the Election Commission of the day, said that it was not their responsibility to inquire about the citizenship of a person filing nomination papers to contest the elections. His stand was that anyone could approach the court in this matter if there was enough evidence.
It is to be noted that the former Election Commission Chairman Deshapriya also took the same stance when complaints were made that Gotabaya Rajapaksa filed his nomination for the 2019 Presidential election without giving up his US citizenship.
It was announced that the Department of Immigration and Emigration would submit a report about the controversy that had arisen over some MPs keeping their dual citizenship secret. But eventually it was forgotten.
If such a statement had been issued, the members of parliament with dual citizenship would surely have been forced to resign. Leaders of political parties in Parliament have an important responsibility in this matter. But none of them seems to realized their legal and and moral responsibility.
Leaders are never known to have asked any of their party’s MPs if they hold dual citizenship. “ Find out if you can” seems to be their approach to this issue.
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