ලංකාවේ සෙනට් සභාව

සෙනෙට් සභාව යනු සෝල්බරි කොමිෂන් සභාව විසින් 1947 දී පිහිටුවන ලද ලංකාවේ (දැන් ශ්‍රී ලංකාව ) පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ ඉහළ මන්ත්‍රී මණ්ඩලයයි. සෙනෙට් සභාව පත් කරන ලද මන්ත්‍රීන් සෘජුව තේරී පත් වූවාට වඩා වක්‍ර ලෙස තේරී පත් විය. එය කොළඹ කොටුවේ පැරණි ව්‍යවස්ථාදායක සභා ගොඩනැගිල්ලේ තැන්පත් කර තිබූ අතර 1947 නොවැම්බර් 12 වැනි දින ප්‍රථම වරට රැස්විය. 1972 මැයි 22 වැනි දින ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නව ජනරජ ව්‍යවස්ථාව සම්මත කිරීමට පෙර සෝල්බරි ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ අටවැනි සංශෝධනය මගින් සෙනෙට් සභාව 1971 ඔක්තෝබර් 2 දින අහෝසි කරන ලදී. 2010 දී සෙනෙට් සභාව නැවත හඳුන්වා දීමට යෝජනා විය.

ඉතිහාසය

ආරම්භය 
සෝල්බරි කොමිසමේ නිර්දේශ මත 1947 දී ලංකා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ උත්තර මන්ත්‍රී මණ්ඩලය ලෙස පිහිටුවීය. මෙහි ආකෘතිය එක්සත් රාජධානියයේ ආකාරයට විය. It was a thirty-member Senate where the members where appointed rather than elected. One of its fundamental aims was to act as a revising chamber by scrutinizing or amending bills that had been passed by the House of Representatives. This was intended to act as a stopgap barrier to prevent the government in power trying to rush through important legislations without giving adequate time to consider such legislations.[2]

Abolition 
The leftist parties of Ceylon and other republicans considered the Senate, with half its members being appointed by the British monarch's representative – the Governor General – to be one of the last vestiges of colonial rule. The Senate had also been dominated by the United National Party since its creation. Soon after the United Front, an alliance consisting of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the main opposition party, and the leftist parties, came to power as a result of the May 1970 election, found that the Senate was controlled by the opposition party. The United Front government faced the possibility of their legislation been delayed in the upper house and it would take 27 months before it could appoint a majority of its members into the Senate with the retirement of sitting Senators. Therefore, it brought in a parliamentary bill to abolish the Senate. The bill's second reading was passed by the House of Representatives on 21 May 1971.[3] The Senate met for the last time on 28 September 1971.[3] The Ceylon (Constitution and Independence) Amendment Act, No. 36 of 1971 received Royal Assent on 2 October 1971, becoming the eighth amendment to the Soulbury Constitution.[3] The Senate was abolished in 1971 after nearly 24 years of existence. A unicameral parliamentary system was introduced with the adaptation of the Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka in 1972.

Recent developments
Recently there have been consideration into the reintroduction of a senate into the Parliament of Sri Lanka. The United People's Freedom Alliance Government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, is exploring possibilities to change the existing parliamentary system significantly. The government proposes that the new Senate will have around 45% of the members from the Parliament and the remaining 55% to be appointed by the president, taking the recommendations of the religious leaders and other distinguished personalities of the civil society. Therefore, the proposed Senate will have a total of 65 members, 28 Sinhalese and the rest, 37, would be appointed from minority communities, professionals and other intellectuals.

මූලාශ්‍ර 

ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ රජය