අධිකරණයේ ගෞරවය කාබාසිනියා කිරීම
The editorial says Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, kept in office despite grave charges, is dragging the whole judiciary into contempt. He promoted to the High Court a former district judge found guilty after ruling in his favour in his own misconduct case, and is now trying to return to the service a relative magistrate found guilty of two rapes and fraud, by blocking prosecution and setting up an unlawful one-man inquiry under a retired judge close to him.
ස්ත්‍රී දූෂක මහේස්ත්‍රාත්යළි අධිකරණ සේවයට
Ivan reports moves to reinstate magistrate Lenin Ratnayake, whom a Judicial Service Commission inquiry of Appeal Court judges Hector Yapa, Asoka de Silva and T.B. Weerasuriya found guilty on all four charges: two rapes of women connected to cases before him, and concealing his dismissal for fraud from the Insurance Corporation. He quotes the charges and the commission’s minutes, summarises the evidence of witnesses, and reproduces extracts of testimony from one victim and from the husband of another.
උපාසක සක සකේ කිකිළි බිජු දෙක දෙකේ
A short satirical note on Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva’s long Vesak article in Lankadeepa on the Noble Eightfold Path, which Ivan says never actually explained the path. If readers took the Chief Justice’s own life as the model, Buddhism would suffer the ruin the courts have. He compares it to magistrate Lenin Ratnayake’s cloak of piety, torn away once he was shown to be a fraud and rapist, and recalls the Buddha’s teaching on the transience of falsehood.
පුදුම රටක්
A multi-part column. Ivan contrasts a poor country with rulers who bought 44 bulletproof cars at Rs 40 million each, many now missing, and spent Rs 600 million on the Sarasavi studio. Under ‘Sadism’ he reports confessions that Sanath Gunathilake ordered the bombing and burning of Anoja Weerasinghe’s house and the attack on Rookantha and Chandraleka, and describes the cover stories spread over the Rohana Kumara murder. Further sections discuss PA divisions over toppling the government and argue the domestic LTTE ban is pointless.
විගණන අධිකාරීවරයාට ඇසිඩ් ගැසීම හා ඉන් කෙරෙන ඇගවීම
Lalith Ambanwala, superintendent of audit in Kandy, was attacked with acid on the very day four senior provincial education officials he had exposed over a fraud of tens of millions were reinstated without proper inquiry. The editorial compares the case to the murder of customs officer Sujith Prasanna Perera, notes that the officials had funded UNP candidates, and warns that unless the government acts firmly against those responsible, rogues will rule the country.
අධිකරණ ඇමතිතුමනි,
An open letter to Justice Minister W.J.M. Lokubandara setting out police evidence on the 14th impeachment charge against Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva: his close ties to Rohana Kumara, alleged mastermind of the Wijekoon murder, who lived at the official residence, used ministry vehicles and posed as his secretary. Quoting statements by Lakshmi Kusumalatha, hotel manager Ranjith Kaluarachchi and Godamunne Pannananda Thera, phone records and gate logs, it asks why the Chief Justice has not been questioned.
ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍යය බලය සමග සෙල්ලම් කිරීම
Ivan says the UNF government has failed to keep local elections civilised and has not appointed the promised inquiry into earlier poll malpractice, and traces state-level electoral fraud from the Dedigama by-election and the Jaffna development council poll through 1982 to its revival under Kumaratunga. A second section on the Constitutional Council recounts how the professionals’ draft was reshaped by Jayampathy Wickramaratne so that the President nominates key appointees, a trap the JVP fell into, and asks why the government has not corrected it.
මැතිවරණ ප්‍රතිඵල වලින් පෙන්නුම් කෙරෙන දේශපාලන උපනති
Ivan analyses the local election results in the Colombo municipal area, Kesbewa, Ratnapura and Galle against the 2000 and 2001 parliamentary polls. The UNP held or gained ground while the PA’s vote collapsed by a third to over half and the JVP also fell sharply. He concludes that voters rejected the PA and JVP’s nationalist claim that the peace effort meant dividing the country, backing peace despite the soaring cost of living.
අගවිනිසුරු සරත් නන්ද සිල්වා සම්බන්ධයෙන් ආණ්ඩුවේ ප්‍රතිපත්තිය කුමක්ද?
Ivan calls the Kumaratunga era the most shameless assault on the Supreme Court’s independence, with a Chief Justice appointed while himself facing charges, political cases routed to benches he sat on, and dissenting judges pushed out. The UNP’s impeachment motion lapsed with the dissolution of Parliament, yet the new UNF government keeps him in office despite objections from the UN rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy, Mary Robinson, the International Commission of Jurists and the International Bar Association.
රාවය ඉදිරිය දකින ආකාරය
Answering critics who say Ravaya has gone soft on the UNF government, the paper recalls its record of opposing both UNP and PA governments. It backs curbing the President’s powers even at the cost of a distorting amendment, prosecution of those responsible for PSD crimes, including the President, and the peace effort, including lifting the LTTE ban. It lists its campaigns on the Elections Commissioner, state gifts, assets declarations, the 17th Amendment and Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and reveals PSD plans to bomb Ravaya and kill its editor.