The new political party to be formed by the 'Joint Opposition' could be registered within two weeks, political sources said.

A crucial meeting took place last night at former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's residence at Mirihana to finalize the details of the political party.

The 'Joint Opposition' has agreed that Rajapaksa must be appointed leader of the new party.

The names of his brothers Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa had been mentioned in political sources as possible leaders during the last few weeks. However, neither of the three Rajapaksa's have made any public announcement of their plans to assume leadership of the new party. However, both brothers of Mahinda Rajapaksa have indicated the need for a new party.

Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa were seen together at the signing of a public petition yesterday.

Ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa denounced the United Nations human rights chief's visit to Sri Lanka as a "big joke", as the former regime stepped up opposition to a UN-backed war-crimes probe.

Former president Rajapaksa and his brother, ex-defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, signed a petition this morning against the probe into allegations of thousands of civilian deaths during the final months of Sri Lanka's separatist war.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein arrived on Saturday (Feb 6) for a four-day visit to gauge the island's progress in investigating war-time atrocities, before he delivers an assessment to the UN Human Rights Council in March.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa accused authorities of arranging for Zeid to meet only sympathisers of Tamil rebels, who were crushed by government troops in 2009, AFP reported.

"He can't come here for a day and expect to understand the situation. He is only meeting one side," Gotabhaya, who was defence secretary during the war's finale, told reporters in Colombo. "It is a big joke."

Flanked by the ex-president, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa repeated the former regime's longstanding position that no war crimes were committed by government troops in the final push.

After defeating Rajapaksa at presidential elections a year ago, his successor Maithripala Sirisena agreed to investigate allegations troops killed up to 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months.

Zeid on Sunday (Feb 7) visited the former war zones of Jaffna and Trincomalee in the island's north and northeast.

Meanwhile, he told local Tamil leaders on the Jaffna peninsula, which saw some of the worst fighting, that there should not be a general amnesty, but a swift legal process to deal with rebel detainees.

"As a general principle it is not acceptable to grant amnesties to those convicted of the most serious crimes - war crimes or crimes against humanity," a spokesman for the rights chief told AFP.

But the UN would welcome a release of those against whom there was insufficient evidence.

More than 200 suspected Tamil separatists remain in prison, many without charge.

Tamil political and civil society groups have long demanded their unconditional release, though the government has refused a blanket amnesty.

(With inputs from AFP)

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa will not take part in the National Day celebrations to be held in Colombo tomorrow.

Speaking to media yesterday, he said that he has not been invited for the event.

Even if he is invited, he will not take part in the event since the 'Joint Opposition' has taken a decision of boycotting state functions, he added.

Addressing a gathering of Kandy District UPFA local councilors, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to remain in politics despite all challenges and harassment.

He pointed out that the government had used the Money Laundering Act, which he introduced to curb financial transactions by LTTE terrorists, to arrest his son. The Act was used to defeat terrorism at that time. It is now used to imprison the son of the leader who defeated terrorism, he added.

Speaking about his decision to remain in politics, Rajapaksa said that he had retired after the defeat at the January 2015 Presidential Election, not to return to politics. However, he was continuously attacked by te government, he added. Thereafter, the UPFA MPs started demanding his return to politics and he decided to do so at their behest, Rajapaksa claimed.

He has no intention of retiring as of now, Rajapaksa stressed.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the remand prison at Welikada to see his son Yoshitha Rajapaksa.

Yoshitha Rajapaksa and four others were remanded yesterday over allegations of fraud at Carlton Sports Network. Rajapaksa is being kept in Ward J of the remand prison.

Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the prison with MPs Namal Rajapaksa, Lohan Ratwatte and Johnston Fernando.

Visitors are not allowed in the remand prison on Sundays. However, Members of Parliament have the right to visit the prison at any time of the day without prior approval.

Sri Lanka's former president Mahinda Rajapaksa looks on as he leaves his second son Yoshitha Rajapaksa who was remanded in custody for two weeks in Kaduwela on January 30, 2016. Rajapaksa was arrested along with four others in connection with money laundering when his father was president. AFP PHOTO / Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP / Ishara S.KODIKARA

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa confused the police Financial Crimes Investigations Division and the PRECIFAC on his official Twitter handle this morning.

He uploaded two photos on Twitter with the caption "At the FCID this morning #SriLanka"

However, he arrived at the PRECIFAC for the inquiry on the alleged non payment of money to the ITN.

Rajapaksa has never been summoned to the premises of the FCID.

Update: The Official Twitter handle published a corrected caption a short while ago.

Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave serious indications about the formation of a new political party, pointing out that "a new party is not SLFP, its a new party".

He made this observation this morning near the PRECIFAC, when journalists asked if he is intending to lead a new political front which is to be formed by the 'Joint Opposition'.

Rajapaksa arrived at the PRECIFAC for the hearings on the alleged fraud at Rakna Lanka Araksha Company.

Answering the journalists, Rajapaksa refused the rumors that he will be the leader of the front.

However he maintained that splitting parties was not new. "SWRD Bandaranaike did it. My father did it" he observed.

He maintained that the 5.8 million people who voted for his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa have been silenced. "Their voice needs to be heard" he said.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa also expressed confidence that his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa would support the new front.

"Doing the correct thing is most important" he said.

UPFA MP and former Minister Kumara Welgama said former President Mahinda Rajapaksa should lead the Sri Lanka Freedom Party campaign at the forthcoming Local Government elections.

Speaking to BBC he said that he was prepared to accept President Maithripala Sirisena since he is an elected leader. However, the people are with Rajapaksa, Welgama also insisted.

Therefore the campaign should be led by Rajapaksa, he said.

Welgama also warned that he will take a serious political decision if the party did not accept this proposal.

The Rajpaksa camp has been discussing the launch of a new political front for weeks. However, the former President has rejected that a new front will be formed.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that the process of promulgating a new constitution should receive as much public participation as possible, since it is a matter that will touch the lives of all Sri Lankans.

In a statement released today, Rajapaksa added that several key aspects should be considered in the drafting of a constitution, including the abolition of executive presidency and electoral reform. However, devolution of powers should not exceed the provisions given in the 13th Amendment, he said, adding that the police and land powers under the 13th Amendment will have to be reviewed.

Rajapaksa also warned against attempts to deflect the attention from the problems facing the country. "This should not be another attempt to hoodwink the masses. If the intention of the government is to simply deflect public attention from the myriad problems facing the country by making loud noises about constitutional change and abolishing the executive presidential system, such an attempt will not succeed" Rajapaksa said.

The complete text of the statement is given below:

Steps have been taken by the government to initiate the process of promulgating a new constitution for Sri Lanka. Since this is a matter that will touch the lives of all Sri Lankans, this process should receive as much public participation as possible.

Controversies have emerged about the procedure to be adopted in making changes to the constitution. The opposition has suggested that the process of constitutional change should be within the provisions of the present constitution and the standing orders of parliament. I believe the government will be flexible on this matter. This is not the first time that changes have been made to the present constitution. By keeping matters within the available parliamentary mechanisms, everybody will be able get on with the task at hand.

My manifesto for the 2015 presidential election “Mahinda Chintana Lowa Dinana Maga” also pledged to take steps to formulate a new constitution for Sri Lanka. Earlier in 2011, my government had appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee under the chairmanship of Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva to look into the changes that need to be made to the constitution including changes relating to the executive presidential system. That responsibility now lies with the present government. The single most important pledge on which the present government was elected into power was the abolition of the executive presidential system.  The 19th Amendment to the constitution passed last year purported to reduce the powers of the presidency, but the executive powers of the president still remain intact.

The preamble of the resolution introduced in parliament last Saturday by the prime minister repeatedly stressed that the main objective of the new constitution would be to abolish the executive presidential system and to institute electoral reform.  These objectives should receive our fullest support. The executive presidential system was mired in controversy from the beginning. The SLFP opposed it even when it was first instituted. Now when the very UNP that created this position is putting forward proposals to abolish it, we in the SLFP cannot oppose it. Furthermore, it’s a nephew of J.R. Jayewardene, the founder of this system who is putting forward proposals to abolish the executive presidential system.

I must stress that this should not be another attempt to hoodwink the masses. If the intention of the government is to simply deflect public attention from the myriad problems facing the country by making loud noises about constitutional change and abolishing the executive presidential system, such an attempt will not succeed. People are now tired of the lies and deception of this government. It is only because the President publicly made a solemn oath over the body of the late Venerable MaduluwaweSobithaThero that the executive presidential system will be totally abolished that I felt that perhaps the government is serious about constitutional change this time.

I wish to strongly suggest that other constitutional changes should not be mixed up with the two key issues of abolishing the executive presidential system and electoral reform, over which widespread consensus has built up over a period of time. The constitutional reform process should proceed in stages, taking up the abolition of the executive presidency and the reform of the electoral system first, and then going on to other matters.  

The executive presidency was first brought in as the second amendment to the 1972 constitution which was passed around October 1977. The then Prime Minister J.R. Jayewardene was sworn in as the first executive president of Sri Lanka on 4 February 1978 on the basis of that amendment.  It was after the executive presidential system was created that the 1978 constitution was promulgated incorporating the newly created executive presidency. Because of the special circumstances that we face today, I believe a similar two-stage approach will have to be adopted in abolishing the executive presidential system as well. 

It is only through a referendum that certain entrenched provisions of the constitution can be changed and if a whole new constitution is presented to the people at a referendum, many of the entrenched provisions can be changed in one fell swoop. People have suspicions that provisions inimical to the unitary character of the Sri Lankan state may find their way into the new constitution if it is passed as a single document. We must ensure that the whole constitution making process is not hampered due to these misgivings. There is no doubt that a referendum would be necessary if the presidential system is to be abolished. The Supreme Court has already given a determination on the matter. On the other hand, the president has already assured parliament that the unitary character of the state and the special status accorded to Buddhism in the constitution will not be touched. If such is the case, no other entrenched provision need be changed and the only matter that will require a referendum will be the abolition of the executive presidency. So by breaking up the constitution making process into different stages, we will be able to get the provisions that require a referendum passed first, leaving the rest to be dealt with later.

Ever since the Supreme Court delivered its determination on the 13th Amendment in 1987, the executive presidency has been seen as the institution that keeps the country together in the context of the powers devolved to the provincial councils. So there are certain misgivings about abolishing this institution.  In this context, a study should be done of the Indian constitution and of the powers vested in the Indian president, the cabinet of ministers and the Indian parliament (including the upper house of parliament) in relation to the Indian states, and similar provisions with additional safeguards if necessary, should be made applicable in relation to the provincial councils in Sri Lanka. While the provincial councils system was based on the Indian model of devolution, many of the safeguards available to the Indian central government to maintain the unity of the country were not made available to the Sri Lankan government through the 13th Amendment. These shortcomings will have to be addressed.

Apart from the abolition of the executive presidency, electoral reform was the second most important pledge given by the present government to the people. In this regard, I wish to point out that the hybrid proportional representation and first past the post system proposed by the Parliamentary Select Committee headed by Hon. Dinesh Gunawardene in 2008 was introduced at the local government level by my government. The next local government election will be held according to this new system. All that remains to be done is to introduce this system to the provincial council and parliamentary levels as well. In order to prevent controversies over the delineation of constituencies as we saw at the local government level, I suggest that the constituencies should be delineated first before the electoral reforms are introduced.

The devolution of power in the new constitution should not exceed the provisions of the 13th Amendment  that have been implemented at present. There should also be no merging of provinces.  The police and land powers accorded to the provincial councils through the 13th Amendment need to be re-examined. The safeguards available to the Indian central government in relation to the utilisation of land are not available to the Sri Lankan government. In the 1962 case of State of West Bengal v Union of India, the Indian Supreme Court affirmed that the central government could acquire any land in any state for any purpose of the central government without the concurrence of the state government. But Appendix II of the Ninth Schedule of our constitution says that the government of Sri Lanka has to ‘consult’ the provincial council to utilise land within that province for a purpose of the government.

The implications of such a provision in the Sri Lankan context should be clear to everybody.  Therefore I suggest that the landmark judgement by the  Supreme Court in the 2013 case of The Ministry of Plantation Industries v SolaimuttuRasu delivered by Chief Justice Mohan Peiris, Justice (now Chief Justice) Sripavan and Justice Eva Wanasundara be incorporated in the new constitution and powers over state land vested in the government and not the provincial councils. The significant fact about this case was that the three judges delivered separate judgments which concurred with one another.

Appendix I of the Ninth Schedule of the present constitution which was introduced through the 13th Amendment outlines the police powers accorded to the provincial councils. If these provisions are implemented, the national police force as we know it will cease to exist and all important day to day police functions will pass onto nine separate provincial police forces. I wish to suggest that while such a system may work in a large country like India where the states are bigger than most other nations, it cannot be practically implemented in a small country like Sri Lanka. Indian states such as Tamil Nadu which are several times the size of Sri Lanka have only one police force.

We will be making a bad mistake if we try to implement systems that are in place on a sub-continental scale within the Union of India in a country smaller than some of the smallest Indian states. In the three decades since the provincial councils system was introduced, we have seen many changes of government, but no leader implemented the police powers accorded to the provincial councils through the 13th Amendment because that would have rendered the country ungovernable. So we should proceed very cautiously on this matter. Unworkable provisions in our existing constitution should be discarded in formulating the new constitution.

I also wish to propose that in thinking about devolution, we should seek to empower the grassroots level bodies such as the local government institutions as far as is practically feasible so that the people of the area have a say in the way they are governed. Leaders on both sides of the political divide have at various times expressed such views and this matter should receive closer attention in the process of constitution making.

The Sixth Amendment to the present constitution which was brought in to prevent separatism should be reviewed. It can be observed that the 16th Amendment to the constitution of India which was brought in by Jawaharlal Nehru much earlier for the same purpose has been more successful in keeping separatist tendencies and separatist ideology in check in India than the 6th Amendment in Sri Lanka. How is it that the TNA takes up positions in Sri Lanka that the AIADMK would never dream of taking in India? This is another matter that needs to be looked into.

It can be seen from the comments that have already been made about the constitution making process, that some sections of the public wish to invoke the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to ensure that the unitary character of the state is not undermined. In this context, if the cabinet bypasses the Supreme Court by designating the Bill brought to amend the constitution in terms of Article 120(b) as “a Bill to be passed with a two thirds majority plus a referendum”, there will be misgivings all around. So I suggest that while the constitution making process is split up into segments as proposed earlier, each segment is designated under Article 120(a) simply as “a Bill for the amendment of the constitution”, so that the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court remains intact, and members of the public will be able to invoke the SC to satisfy themselves that no provisions have been introduced which affect the unitary character of the state.  

Once the new constitution is passed into law, it may be appropriate to hold an election to elect a new government under the new constitution.