මෝඩකමට බෙහෙත් නැත
Justice Minister Batty Weerakoon objected when the UN Special Rapporteur on judicial independence, Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy, asked through the Foreign Minister that Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva stand aside until the impeachment is resolved. Ivan explains Sri Lanka’s obligations under the ICCPR, its 1997 accession to the Optional Protocol, the 1985 UN principles and the 1997 Beijing Statement, recalls Cumaraswamy’s earlier objection to Silva’s appointment over pending complaints and seniority, and calls the People’s Alliance era the darkest in the judiciary’s history.
දෝෂාභියෝගයක් කැඳවා ගැනීම
Ivan compares how Presidents Jayewardene, Premadasa and Wijetunga handled Parliament, noting that Wijetunga let the narrowly elected People’s Alliance govern after 1994. President Kumaratunga, with the weakest parliamentary base of all, ruled more harshly than Jayewardene, and her treatment of Rauff Hakeem turned the government into a minority. By proroguing Parliament without telling the Cabinet as a no-confidence motion loomed, and floating a referendum, he argues she is inviting an impeachment backed by two-thirds of MPs.
විධායක ජනාධිපති ක්රමය අහෝසි නොකරන්නේ නම්, වහා ප්රතිසංස්කරණය කළ යුතුය
Ivan argues that the five proposed independent commissions cannot restore democracy unless the executive presidency is abolished or drastically reformed. Recalling N.M. Perera’s warning that a hostile parliament would paralyse the system and Colvin R. de Silva’s description of it as a constitutional dictatorship, he sets out eight reforms, including ending the President’s power to dissolve or prorogue Parliament at will, giving the Prime Minister the power to name the Cabinet, simplifying removal of a President, and handing key appointments to a Constitutional Council.
දෝෂාභියෝගයක්
With an impeachment motion filed against Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, Ivan recalls the only earlier one under the 1978 Constitution, against Neville Samarakoon. He recounts Samarakoon’s career and clashes with Jayewardene’s government: the reconstituted Supreme Court, the Kalawana seat, the referendum amendment, the Ratanasara and Vivienne Goonewardene cases and mobs outside judges’ homes, and his 1984 speech that led to a select committee and impeachment committee. The contrast with today shows how far politics has declined.
ජනාධිපති අරමුදල හා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament that the President’s Fund need not table accounts because it receives nothing from the Consolidated Fund. The editorial calls this misleading: the Act subjects the fund to audit and parliamentary scrutiny, it has not been audited since 1995, and it is fed by state lotteries worth perhaps Rs. 10,000 million a year, comparable to Samurdhi or war capital spending. It traces the fund to J.R. Jayewardene and recalls an incomplete list of beneficiaries given to Sarath Kongahage.
Democratising a rotten system
The political system has fallen so low that reforms are now demanded not only by political parties but by civic organisations. What is on the table — the commissions, the media provisions, the end of the rule that costs an expelled member his seat — and what it would take to get agreement on it.
රාජ්ය ප්රජාතන්ත්රීය කිරීම
Ivan surveys reform proposals from parties and civil society: the UNP’s four independent commissions, the JVP’s call to abolish the executive presidency and for a state media commission, and the Alliance for Democracy’s conditions for reforming the presidency, on dissolution, appointing the Prime Minister and Cabinet, expulsion of MPs and emergency powers. He adds the Editors’ Guild proposals on criminal defamation, freedom of information and an independent Press Council, citing Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s dual roles.
කමලාවතීගේ ජනාධිපති වේශ නිරූපණය
A woman who dressed as the President, including her injured eye, in a UNP march had her Raddolugama house attacked. The editorial recalls earlier impersonations of Jayewardene and the Premadasas, cartoonists’ caricatures and leaders’ nicknames, notes that the government itself used the covered-eye photograph and caricatured Ranil Wickremesinghe as Dracula, criticises the class disdain in the President’s response and compares the attack to earlier ones over mimicry of Pavithra Wanniarachchi.
යන්නෙ කොහේද? මල්ලෙ පොල්
Ivan catalogues the absurdities of government: the President’s television pledge not to postpone local elections, contradicted by the news bulletin that followed; her claim that democratic freedom is complete as the International Press Institute put Sri Lanka on its watch list; Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake blaming democracy for the decline; attacks on the UNP’s march in Kegalle linked to Mahipala Herath; and a curb on ministers’ vehicles issued after they had all been bought.
පාන් වෙනුවට කේක්
In a television interview the President denied an economic slide or real price rises and claimed a bank driver earns Rs. 60,000 while a minister gets Rs. 19,000. The editorial corrects her figures, noting ministers earn about Rs. 29,815 tax-free and that some have built mansions since 1994, reads her remarks on executive power as a warning, and likens her message to Marie Antoinette’s.