Former President must read 19th Amendment “The 19th amendment to the Constitution clearly interprets the term ‘public servant’. We request former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to read the 19th Amendment. It says the Secretary to the President is a public servant,” JVP Publicity Secretary, Parliamentarian Vijitha Herath said.
Herath was addressing a press conference held at the JVP Headquarters in Battaramulla yestreday.
“Even prior to passing the 19th Amendment, the Secretary to the President had no power to infringe the Constitution. The Secretary to the President cannot infringe international law either. He should act according to written law. As such, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his followers cannot escape from the wrongdoing of bribery by hanging on to the Constitution,” he said.
Herath said the bone of contention was not whether Lalith Weeratunga was a rogue according to the Constitution. “If they said Lalith Weeratunga was not a public servant, can he withdraw Rs. 600 million from the TRC and distribute ‘Sil Redi’ as a normal citizen. If this exercise was a government policy as claimed by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it should have been included in the budget. But its proposals did not include such a thing.
“If not, this project should have been included in the action plan tabled by the TRC for the relevant years. But it was proved in court that the Sil Redi distribution project was not included as a proposal in any of these documents. This was a clear misappropriation of public funds. After the court verdict was given, Mahinda Rajapaksa said he would take responsibility to it. But he never took responsibility while the judicial process was underway. Therefore, it was clearly evident that Mahinda Rajapaksa and Lalith Weeratunga implemented this exercise according to a plan.
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