Committee to negotiate with petitioners on Delimitation Gazette

The Party Leaders yesterday decided to appoint a three member committee to negotiate with six petitioners who filed petitions in Court of Appeal seeking an order to make Delimitation Gazzette inoperative.

The committee comprises of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran.

These six petitioners obtained an Interim Injunction preventing the holding of Local Government elections.

During the party leaders’ meeting, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stressed the importance of negotiating these petitioners in order to get their petitions withdrawn.

He pointed out that these petitions have paved the way for the interim injunction by the Court of Appeal preventing the holding of the Local Government election.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the Local Government elections should be held in January as decided earlier and the Provincial Council Elections to follow in March.

The Gazette that was issued on August 21, 2015 was studied in detail at the meeting yesterday. At the meeting it was ordered to refuse the report on the delimitation submitted by the previous government and to correct the flaws in the proposals following discussions with the District Secretariats and the Divisional Secretariats.

The party leaders also focused on filing a motion in the Court of Appeal on November 30 to expedite the court procedure without waiting till its next date of hearing scheduled for December 4.

They also decided to seek the possibilities of holding the election within the limits of the 2015 Gazette Notification (The attention of the Party Members’ was drawn on the view that since the issue has been raised with the 64 Multi Member Constituencies, the 2015 Gazette could be implemented on the other wards).

The party leaders’ meeting was held with Speaker Jayasuriya presiding at the Speaker’s Office in the the Parliament complex.

In addition to the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament, Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya, Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya, Local Government and Provincial Council Minister Faizer Mustapaha were present in the meeting.

The responsibility of taking the future steps was handed over to the Speaker by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the other Party Leaders at the end of the meeting.

During the meeting, the unanimous view of all the participants’ was not to delay the election.

Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said that he would be ready to commence the election process when the legal barriers are cleared.