Swaminathan, Aswer nominated to PAC

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 October 2010, 08:54 GMT]
Two national list parliamentarians, a Muslim and a Tamil, have been nominated respectively by Sri Lanka Prime Minister and the opposition leader to the five-member Parliamentary Advisory Council (PAC) that is to be established under the 18th amendment to the constitution. The Prime Minister D. M. Jayaretna nominated A. H. M. Aswer from the national list of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the opposition nominated D. M. Swaminathan from the national list of the main opposition United National Party (UNP).

Earlier the opposition leader had nominated M. A. Sumanthiran, the sole national list parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to the PAC but he refused to give his consent as TNA is opposed to the 18th amendment.

The Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader are also to serve as ex-official members of the PAC.

The Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa is to forward these names to SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa to pave way to constitute the PAC, parliamentary sources said.

PAC replaces the Constitutional Council established under the Seventeenth Amendment and is expected to appoint members to the seven independent commissions, namely the Commission to Investigate the Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, the Election, the Police, the Public Service, the Finance, De-limitation and Human Rights.

However, Clause 1 of Section 41A of the 18th Amendment says that in making appointments to the seven independent commissions, SL President shall seek only the observations of the PAC.