Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has announced that the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) will hold a public rally and protest in Colombo on September 24 against the proposed 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, Hiru News reported.
He made the announcement on Sunday while addressing SJB local government members and Colombo District constituency organisers at the Opposition Leader’s Office.
The date is not a coincidence
Hiru’s report does not say so, but September 24 is the day Parliament begins its two-day debate on the 22nd Amendment. The Committee on Parliamentary Business fixed the debate for September 24 and 25, covering both the 22nd Amendment Bill and the Judicature (Amendment) Bill.
The protest is therefore timed to the opening day of the parliamentary debate rather than to a date of the SJB’s own choosing.
What Premadasa said
Premadasa said the government led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is destroying democracy, judicial independence and the rule of law, and described the country as facing a grave challenge.
He urged the public to defeat what he called an attempt by the National People’s Power (NPP) government to destroy democracy, establish single-party rule and centralise power in Pelawatta — a reference to the location of the NPP’s headquarters — through the amendment.
Premadasa alleged the government had secured its two-thirds majority by misleading the public, and said holding 159 seats in Parliament would not entitle it to erode the rights of 22 million citizens.
He said the SJB was the first party to explicitly oppose the 22nd Amendment and that its opposition would be strengthened through democratic means. The September 24 protest, he said, would “fire the opening salvo” to defeat the amendment and lead towards a change of government.
The determination Parliament still has not seen
The debate is scheduled even though the Supreme Court’s determination on the Bill has still not been tabled. It was expected before Parliament during the sitting week that ended on September 11 and did not arrive. Until Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne announces it to the House, the ruling stays confidential — neither the petitioners nor the Government are told what it says.
A five-judge bench concluded two days of argument under Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena. A record 67 petitions were filed against the Bill, the most ever brought against a constitutional amendment in Sri Lanka.
Premadasa has pressed the judicial-independence argument repeatedly this month, including in Parliament against the Justice Minister and at a rally in Lunugamwehera.
Update (September 13): the Daily Mirror confirms the announcement
The Daily Mirror, filing on Sunday afternoon, independently confirms the September 24 protest and the setting — a meeting of SJB Colombo District local government members and electorate organisers at the Opposition Leader’s Office.
Its account of the argument is narrower than Hiru’s and sharper on one point: Premadasa accused the government of “seeking to establish one-party rule by undermining judicial independence and the rule of law” through the amendment, and said that despite the government holding a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the people’s democratic rights would not be allowed to be undermined. Where Hiru has him alleging the two-thirds majority was obtained by misleading the public, the Daily Mirror has him accepting the majority as a fact and contesting what may be done with it.
The Daily Mirror does not repeat the Pelawatta reference, the 159-seat figure or the “opening salvo” line, and like Hiru it gives no venue or start time.
Update (September 18): the venue is Polduwa Junction — and the protest has widened beyond the SJB
Five days out, both outlets have returned to the story, and between them they close the venue gap and change the character of the event.
The location is the Parliament roundabout. Hiru News reports that the protest will be held at Polduwa Junction — the roundabout on the approach to Parliament in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte — and the Daily Mirror independently places it at “Parliament Junction” on September 24. That is the same site under two names, and it is not central Colombo: the demonstration is sited at the doors of the chamber that begins debating the Bill that morning, rather than in the city.
It is no longer only an SJB event. The Daily Mirror reports that several opposition political parties and civil society organisations are planning the protest jointly, and that the groups “had agreed to join forces in a collective campaign” against the amendment. Parties represented both inside and outside Parliament are said to be taking part, alongside civil society groups.
A new organiser is named. The Daily Mirror attributes the announcement to the Freedom Action Centre for Protection of Democracy — a body that has not appeared in earlier reporting on the amendment, and whose membership, leadership and origins the report does not describe.
What the SJB is doing separately
Hiru reports that Premadasa set out his case at an awareness event for members of the Samagi Lawyers’ Association, the Samagi Ranaviru Balawegaya and the Indigenous Doctors’ Association, held to prepare them for the protest — indicating the party is mobilising its professional and ex-servicemen’s affiliates rather than relying on a general turnout.
He called the 22nd Amendment “a conspiracy that turns the supreme law, the constitution, upside down,” damaging the separation of powers between legislature, executive and judiciary and destroying democracy “based on principles of checks and balances,” which he said “must be defeated by popular power.”
He argued that a two-thirds majority has been overcome before, citing the no-confidence motion the SJB brought against the then Energy Minister over the coal procurement affair: the motion was lost on the government’s numbers, he said, but the minister and the ministry secretary both resigned regardless. He also noted that a president elected by 6.9 million votes “had to leave his office because of this popular power.”
The one link the reporting does not make
It is tempting to read Thursday’s protest as the product of the all-party opposition meeting convened for September 17 by Joint Opposition convenor G.L. Peiris to discuss “a common struggle to safeguard democracy.”
Neither report supports that. The Daily Mirror does not mention the September 17 meeting, Peiris, or the Joint Opposition at all, and attributes the plan to the Freedom Action Centre for Protection of Democracy instead. Whether the meeting produced this protest, produced something else, or produced nothing remains unreported — the question that article raised is still open.
The SJB had already staged one protest against the amendment, at Colombo Fort on September 3, the Daily FT reported at the time.
Still unreported
Neither outlet gives a start time, an expected turnout, or the names of any opposition party other than the SJB that has committed to attend — “several opposition political parties” remains the Daily Mirror’s own description. Nor does either say whether police permission has been sought for a demonstration at Polduwa Junction on a sitting day, whether the Freedom Action Centre for Protection of Democracy is a new formation or an existing one, or whether the Supreme Court’s determination on the Bill — still not tabled in Parliament — will be known before the protest takes place.
Not reported
Neither outlet gives the protest’s venue or start time, says whether other opposition parties have been invited to join, or reports any government response.
Neither says whether the protest proceeds if the Supreme Court determination forces changes to the Bill, or if the debate is postponed. Neither addresses the Judicature (Amendment) Bill listed alongside the 22nd Amendment for the same two days.
Ada Derana was unreachable behind a CloudFront block throughout this period. Daily FT, the Island, Colombo Gazette, EconomyNext, Daily News, News.lk, the Sunday Times and NewsFirst had not filed on the announcement at the time of writing.
