හදිසි මැතිවරණයක
As the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE nears its first anniversary, the seizure of a boat carrying anti-aircraft weapons shows the LTTE is ready for war, unsettled by talk of a snap dissolution and the President’s pact with the JVP. The editorial warns that an election under cohabitation would be a violent contest, and lists eight points the parties should agree, including electoral reform, restoring the independent commissions, a neutral caretaker government and a five-year national government.
අභ්යන්තර තුවාල හඳුනාගැනීම
Writing after a workshop in Austria led by conflict-resolution scholar Johan Galtung, Ivan takes up Galtung’s point that history and myth feed Sri Lanka’s conflict. Drawing on B.H. Farmer’s ‘Ceylon: A Divided Nation’, he traces how the Mahavamsa’s stories of Vijaya, Mahinda and Dutugemunu shaped a Sinhala sense of special origin and of the Tamil as historic enemy, a potential tapped from Dharmapala and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike to the JVP, and argues that these inner wounds must be treated along with the outer ones.
නීති සමාජය ගොලුවීම
After UN rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy visited Tony Fernando in hospital and urged the Bar Association to speak up, Ivan condemns the silence of lawyers, human rights figures and most newspapers, and alleges that the Chief Justice uses an $18.2 million World Bank judicial reform loan to buy silence through consultancies and trips. He faults President Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe for tolerating the rot, questions the President’s claims about LTTE arms ships and an assassination plot, and criticises W.J.M. Lokubandara’s handling of the Public Trustee.
වඳින්න ගිය දේවාලය හිසේ කඩා වැටීම
The editorial protests that the Supreme Court sentenced a fundamental rights petitioner, an English teacher with a heart condition, to a year in prison for contempt without charge, legal advice or a chance to defend himself, on a bench that included the Chief Justice, a respondent in the case. It condemns the silence of the media, human rights groups and the legal community while international bodies react with shock.
නිදහස හා ජාතික ඒකාග්රතාව
With national unity as the theme of the coming Independence Day celebrations, the editorial argues that rivalry between the two main southern parties blocks a settlement. Citing South Africa, it proposes agreeing basic constitutional principles in all-party talks including the LTTE, holding an election under a changed electoral system, and then forming a national government of all elected parties to draft a new constitution.
ටෝනිට සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද
Ivan traces Tony Fernando’s long search for redress after his employer refused to meet his private hospital bills following a workplace accident, through the Labour Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, Ombudsman, Speaker and Supreme Court, until the Chief Justice jailed him for a year for contempt and he was beaten in prison. He argues that Sarath N. Silva has placed close associates at the head of every institution of redress, including the human rights and bribery commissions, the Public Trustee and the prisons, forming an octopus-like net.
අධිකරණය කොයිබටද?
The editorial says the judiciary now produces the kind of horror stories once heard from the underworld: death threats against the two district judges who petitioned against the Chief Justice and against Desmond Fernando, posters against the judges on Supreme Court premises, and a petitioner jailed and beaten. Police have named Rohana Kumara, a notorious criminal and associate of the Chief Justice, as behind the threats, and a former prisons commissioner as among those behind the posters, while lawyers, rights groups and the government stay silent.
Rule of Law and the Judiciary
One of the three pillars of the modern democratic political system is the judiciary. When the legislature consisting of representatives elected by the people enacts policies, the instrument that implements those policies is the executive.
සටන් විරාම ගිවිසුමට වසරකි
Marking the first anniversary of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the LTTE on 22 February, the editorial notes that the PA and JVP condemn it as a betrayal while the government hails it as its greatest achievement, both treating it as a tool in the southern power struggle. It argues that a true assessment must start from the relief the agreement brought to the long-suffering people of the North and East, which a numbed majority mentality and majority-dominated media ignore.
ශ්රී ලංකාව සඳහා මහාචාර්ය ගල්ටුන් නිර්දේශ කරන පෙඩරල් මාදිලිය
Noting which parties favour or oppose federalism, the piece outlines the model Johan Galtung put to a mixed Sri Lankan audience: bicameral legislatures at the centre and in the provinces, with a senate in which each ethnic group has equal representation and a veto on matters affecting it, so that minorities in both south and north-east are protected. It compares the US, Swiss and Indian second chambers and notes Galtung’s views on soft borders, courts and the division of powers.