DailyMirror
Regulations to curb international and local terrorism may remain
The government has decided to scale down the emergency regulations after a two-day debate in Parliament scheduled for tomorrow and the day after, authoritative sources said yesterday. The state of emergency was re-imposed in August, 2005 following the assassination of Foreign Affairs Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.
Since then, the ruling UPFA has continued to extend the state of emergency every month in Parliament.
Authoritative sources told Daily Mirror yesterday that the government would continue with certain emergency regulations needed only to deal with the ex-LTTE combatants and to prevent the organization’s regrouping in the international arena.
“We will relax other regulations. Therefore, we are planning to have a two-day debate on the extension of the state of emergency,” he said.
After the end of war in May, last year, the government came under pressure from various quarters to relax emergency regulations. However, then Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake mentioned virtually at every debate on the state of emergency that remnants of the LTTE were still lingering, and therefore they could not be scaled down or scrapped.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Democratic People’s Front have voted against the state of emergency right from the beginning. Most of the time, the main opposition UNP was not been present in the House when the vote was taken up on every occasion. However, the JVP had supported the emergency extension until recent times.
The ruling UPFA yesterday had its first parliamentary group meeting after the general election, and assigned MPs to participate in the debate tomorrow and day after.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed the parliamentary group that chances should be given for the new MPs to speak during the debate. The President noted that the standard of the last Parliament had dropped to low level, and therefore emphasised the need to maintain the decorum of the House.
“We have to set an example to the world in this respect. People have given us nearly a two-third. We should put this mandate to good use and be exemplary,” he said
A Minister who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity that the President asked the MPs to be regular in their participation in parliamentary businesses. Especially, he instructed the Ministers to be present during the oral question time, and answer questions by the opposition, without leaving it to the Chief Government Whip as in the last Parliament.
In this case, he emphasised that the parliamentary Standing Orders should be followed strictly.