The government will be in trouble if it enforce the online safety bill although it is passed in the parliament by a majority. On the 13th of this month public law and order minister Tiran Alles brought a proposal to bring a new bill to the cabinet as an amendment to the previously passed troublesome online safety bill, which the cabinet approved. If the government tries to implement this law I am sure the government will fall in trouble. The Question is why didnt Ranil Wickramasinghe, Tiran Alles who presented this bill to the parliament and the ministers who favoured the bill failed to understand the seriousness of this. The cabinet ministers has discussed about 47 out of 57 clauses in the bill should be amended, it is clear now this bill is full of mess.
Minister Tiran Allas published this bill in the government gazette in September last year. From that day there were 47 petitions filed in the Supreme Court against this bill. Meantime when this draft bill was presented to the Supreme Court for an interpretation, the Supreme Court instructed and informed the speaker that 35 out of 47 clauses in the draft bill should be amended but there is no information that these amendments are included in the debate committee stage in the parliament. However this bill was passed in the parliament by a majority on Feb 1st and the bill was enforced as a law when the speaker signed the bill on the 2nd of February. Although the bill was passed it was not implemented due to of non forming of commissions needed for the online safety bill. According to the first draft the members of the commissions should be appointed by the president. Later it was changed as the members of the commission should be appointed by the Constitutional Council as the bill adopted in the parliament. The president can nominate his members to the Constitutional Council and if the Constitutional Council approves they can be the members of the commission. But until this moment the president has not taken any steps to appoint his members to the Constitutional Council. Despite no commission appointed the bill cannot take action against any social media complaints.
The members of the opposition following passing the bill insisted the the speaker not to sign to approve its functions because the bill contradicts with certain clause in the penal code and also violates human rights are the opinions of the experts in law.
The government without heeding the advice of the lawyers voted in favour of the bill. This is the problem the country has faced today. Whatever the bill is presented in the parliament the government MP’s raise their hands as signal posts. They don’t have the interest to inquire whether this bill is favouring the people or is this bill harmful to the people. This is the main catastrophe in our politics today. The members of the parliament who were elected with peoples mandate who are lawmakers of the house is functioning without consciousness which is a serious matter. When we personally speak to the members they may say they dont like this bill but favour the bill in the parliament during voting. Why this happens ? This proves the amount of corruption in our parliament.
Minister Tiran Alles said that he is ready to bring any amendments to the bill at anytime which proves he is knows that there can be amendments to this bill. If so why this bill was presented without these amendments in the first instance. What is the urgency to pass this bill quickly? Presenting a bill is about an initial step taken about a how a law will be affected in the future.
If a proposal is passed in the parliament we have a legal draftsmen department which will draft the proposal in to law. It is not clear on what basis the government made this bill. I am not against this bill, I agree there is should be an online safety against social media users. There are other countries who use this law but they use for the well being of the society. But from this bill we can naturally see this is brought to suppress the anti government voices. Due to the narrow intentions of the government now the government it self is trying to amend the bill. The government knows the seriousness of the bill hence ready to amend 47 clauses out of 57. If 47 out of 57 clauses are said to be amended, who made this unsubstantial bill. This bill was neither made by Ranil Wickramasinghe or Tiran Alles. The question raised here ism whoever made this law didnt know these facts. Whoever made this bill didn’t study such bills made in other countries.
If the person who made this bill has a genuine intention to curb the online none safety and to save the people from the oppression of the social media we could have brought a better drafted bill than this which no one can protest against this because there are harmful activities taking place in the social media. It is true for the well being of the society we have to take some legal actions, there is no argument about it. But a sudden, urgent, fast bill presented to the parliament and allow it to pass by pro government members, is for a genuine well being of the public ? We do not know what clauses the government trying to amend. If the government is trying to amend 47 clauses out of 57, it is going to be a new bill. People has an understanding about the contents and the public unsuitability of the bill, let us see what amendments the government trying to bring to the new bill.
The Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission sent a letter to the speaker of the parliament raising concerns about five instances of this bill to the speaker but the government did not pay any attention. That raises more concerns as to why the government wants to adopt this bill urgently at a time when the president himself has said that this is a year of elections. Anyone can have a genuine doubt because we all know according to the constitution there is a presidential election scheduled this year between September and October.
Meantime there are speculations reported that President is trying to amend the constitution and abolish the presidency and a draft bill is created for the purpose. If an abolition of presidency is taking place , not only a 2/3 majority in the parliament but a referendum is essential. If that is so, is the government trying not to keep any elections but to keep a referendum. According to the president if this year is an election year, what is the reason for urgently adopting this online safety bill? Is that to oppress the anti government and dissident voices or to suppress anti government opinions held by the social media activists for any elections coming in the future? If the bill is brought for a genuine reason to stop the harmful elements in the social media, that cannot be protested by anybody.
However when you inquire about the recent past activities of the government and its members it is normal to have a doubt that this online safety bill is brought to oppress anti government opinion because the people of the country knows the conduct of the president and the pro government ministers. Therefore we cannot eliminate the doubts of the public about this bill. Within this dirty politics started in 1977 More than the government trying to inquire into the legitimate protests launched against the government and take appropriate steps the government try to oppress the protests by various means. From 1977 the governments in power used different methods to suppress anti government protests. What they used in the past cannot be used now.
Now the government has understood that this bill passed in the parliament will backfire them. Let us wait and see what are the 47 amendments brought to this bill. If the government is genuinely want to bring an optimal bill to safeguard the public from social media nobody cannot protest. But if the government is going to bring this bill to suppress the anti government activists voices targeting this coming election it will not be productive for the government and for the country. Let us wait and see what are the amendment the government is planing to bring.
Azgar Nuhman – Freelance journalist and Sufi author
