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මෙවරත් නීතියක් නැති ඡන්දයක් ද?
Victor Ivan
Ravaya
After the dissolution of Parliament, the caretaker People's Alliance government raised public sector pay, cut the defence levy, made casual workers permanent and recruited in bulk, all of which Ivan says count as bribery under election law. He warns that the government is heading for a ruthless election whatever the
The President called the 1978 constitution ridiculous and went on enjoying the privileges of the system it created, without even reforming away its contradictions. She is paying for that now.
Ivan revisits the adultery case chemical engineer Jayasekera brought against Sarath N. Silva, then an Appeal Court judge. He shows how complaints to K. Palakidnar, Presidents Premadasa and Wijetunga went nowhere, how District Judge Upali Abeyratne's handling of the case drew disciplinary charges that stalled once Silva became Attorney General
The editorial notes that, pending an Elections Commission, the 17th Amendment gives its powers to the Elections Commissioner, including control of police on election duty and the power to take over partisan state bodies. It calls on him to stop misuse of state resources and state media, to collect the
Ivan argues that judicial reform must come first and that a Judicial Service Commission reshuffled under the 17th Amendment will change nothing while the discredited Chief Justice stays. He traces magistrate Lenin Ratnayake's career from an insurance-claim fraud at the Insurance Corporation, through patronage into the judiciary, to two rape
With the services and manufacturing sectors collapsing, economic growth has fallen to zero and may turn negative, bringing soaring prices and job losses. The editorial says the rulers are absorbed in the political crisis, investors are pulling back and state institutions barely function. It argues that an early parliamentary election
Ivan says the new Constitutional Council must win public trust through its conduct, not merely by filling vacancies. He notes gaps in its powers, criticises the retention of incumbent commission secretaries and the Bribery Commission's Director General, points to conflicts of interest at the Human Rights Commission, Attorney General's and
Freeing the institutions under the Constitutional Council from politicisation, and directing them so as to guarantee good governance, is one of the council's main obligations. The first thing it has to do is define properly what the institutions and the posts under it are responsible for.
Ivan welcomes the 17th Amendment but lists its flaws: no public debate, no published draft, brief review by a three-judge bench, and passage without a final draft before Parliament. He faults the UNP's weak first draft and lack of vigilance, credits the JVP for securing the reform but says it
Ivan argues that constitutional amendments should not be rushed or sent to court before the public sees the draft, citing N.M. Perera and faulting Batty Weerakoon and Jayampathy Wickramaratne. He contrasts the seven- and nine-judge benches that reviewed earlier amendments with Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva's small benches that left
Despite its limitations, the enactment of the 17th Amendment is an important step towards rebuilding institutions broken by political interference. The editorial calls the Constitutional Council the heart of the reform and urges the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and all parties to appoint honest people with backbone rather than political
For all the serious and inherent limits of the Seventeenth Amendment, the fact that a Constitutional Council and a system of independent commissions have been enacted is a very important step. It was the JVP's intervention that got even this debilitated version through.
The politicisation of institutions that should be independent is a main cause of the country's decline, and the 17th Amendment was meant to hand key appointments to a respected Constitutional Council. The editorial notes that the opposition draft provided for eight members, including five eminent persons chosen jointly by the
Ivan calls the JVP–PA probation pact a test of the JVP's maturity and honesty. Its claimed gains are hollow: the referendum was dropped because of public protest, and Parliament was brought forward only a day, perhaps because astrologers deemed the 7th inauspicious. Quoting the PA's 1994 manifesto, he shows the
The probationary programme agreed between the PA and the JVP will be decisive for both the PA and the UNP, and more decisive still for the JVP — because everything it does in this period will show its political maturity, its capacity to act on firm principle, and its honesty.
Ivan welcomes the JVP–PA agreement to enact the 17th Amendment's Constitutional Council and four independent commissions by 24 September, and describes the council's makeup and the fourteen offices it would fill. He lists further posts that should come under it, faults the draft for leaving current office-holders in place and
The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shows that a movement willing to sacrifice its members can do great damage to even the most powerful state. The editorial says America's democracy at home was not matched by its oppressive treatment of other countries, which bred hatred. Retaliation
Whatever the limits of the JVP's programme, enacting the Constitutional Council and the four independent commissions of the Seventeenth Amendment before 24 September would be a first step towards changing the political culture of this country.
Ivan questions whether the JVP can win the five independent commissions by giving oxygen to a dying People's Alliance government. He recalls its seats on the rigged North Western Provincial Council and support for PA provincial administrations, and gives the numbers: the government fell from a majority to 109 against
The editorial says the country now has a People's Alliance government steered by the JVP: the bottle is Chandrika's but the wine is the JVP's. If the JVP's probation programme at least secures the five independent commissions, an idea that came from civil society, that is a gain. But as
