Colombo (LNW): President Ranil Wickremesinghe is scheduled to table the government’s proposals on the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in Parliament next week, informed sources said.
These proposals will be presented with a special statement by the President, and Wickremesinghe is believed to be presenting facts pertaining to the sharing of powers other than police powers under the 13A.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was introduced to Sri Lanka as an outcome of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord of July 1987, signed between then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayawardena, proposing the devolution of power by introducing the ‘federal system’, in an attempt to resolve the longstanding ethnic conflict. The outcome of it was the establishment of Provincial Councils.
Wickremesinghe had convened an all-party conference on July 26 to inform the party leaders representing Parliament about the government’s programme in relation to national reconciliation, with a primary focus on the 13A.
