The Judicial Services Commission has issued a statement in response to criticism contained in an International Bar Association report that analyzed the state of Judiciary in Sri Lanka.
According to the JSC the commission has taken measures of disciplinary control of Judges in accordance with the law. However, the statement says nothing about the alleged partiality shown by the judiciary with regard to the case of Magistrate Lenin Ratnayake and District Judge Upali Abeyratne — two judicial officers who, according to some analysts, were alleged to be responsible for causing a crisis in the judiciary of this country.
It was on August 17, 1997 that a newspaper levelled a charge of rape against Magistrate Ratnayake. Thereafter, the newspaper claimed that Mr. Ratnayake had been dismissed from his earlier employment at the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation after being found guilty of a fraud.
When the alleged rape story was reported in the newspaper, attorney Kalyananda Thiranagama on behalf of the raped woman made formal plaints to the JSC and to the Supreme Court, based on two affidavits from her and her husband.
But the JSC took 23 months to initiate an inquiry into that incident, Why? A three-judge committee of Inquiry consisting of Appeal judges was appointed by the Judicial Commission to inquire into the charges and it ruled that the Magistrate was guilty of camouflaging his ‘dishonorable’ past for the purpose of joining the Judicial Service as well as of rape. But the JSC did not take deterrent action against Mr. Ratnayake.
The judiciary handed to the Attorney General’s Department the responsibility of framing charges against the Magistrate and pending this action sent him on compulsory leave on full pay. But, months after, the matter remains dormant.
The complaint made to the JSC by Chemical Engineer Jayasekera against District Judge Upali Abeyratne, also was taken up for inquiry.
By the time Sarath Silva was appointed to the post of Attorney General, those two Judges had inquired into the complaint, prepared a formal charge sheet, and had sent it to Judge Abeyratne, calling for response in writing within one month.
The JSC must explain to the country what happened to that inquiry?
It was only after a request made to the Chief Justice by the congress of former president the Bar Association in response to continuous agitation made by a newspaper that the Judicial Service Commission was compelled to revive the suppressed inquiry.
The inquiring committee consisting of three Appeal Court Judges found the District Judge guilty of all the charges. The Commission immediately decided to sent the judge on compulsory retirement.
However, surprisingly the JSC took a different action by suspending the judge’s promotions for two years and transferring him to Moneragala. The JSC response to the change of action was that it took this decision after considering an appeal made by President’s Counsel Faiz Mustapha on behalf of the judge.
If the commission had any respect for natural justice, it should have considered the appeal only in the presence of the complainant’s lawyers. It was me that the commission considered to be the complainant in the inquiry against Magistrate Lenin Ratnayake. Although the committee of inquiry had given me the right to obtain the daily reports of the inquiry the reply given by the JSC when I asked it for the report containing the conclusions of the committee of Inquiry was that it would not be given. However, one of the terms included in the Beijing Accord is that the reports of disciplinary inquiries conducted with regard to Judges must be treated as public documents.