අවිචාරය, උද්ධච්චකම හා අශීලාචාරත්වය
Ivan argues that by ignoring the judgments of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal in the impeachment of the Chief Justice, the government has done what no previous government dared, destroying both the courts’ legitimacy and its own. He traces the Supreme Court’s power to interpret the constitution and the ancient reach of the writ jurisdiction, recalls the Bracegirdle case under colonial rule and Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s certiorari against J.R. Jayewardene’s commission, and warns, with Musharraf’s Pakistan as the precedent, that two rival Chief Justices could now follow.
දෝෂාභියෝගයේ තවත් පැත්තක්
Ivan argues that the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake exposes a constitution built to keep the judiciary subservient: a judge who displeases the executive can be removed by a simple majority, while a president is all but unremovable. He sets her case beside Neville Samarakoon’s dignified stand against J.R. Jayewardene, reads the 1,575-page select committee report and finds the key charge unproven, yet holds that her part in buying a Trillium Residencies flat left her with a moral lapse of her own.
අහෝ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Ivan condemns the one-sided procedure by which Parliament’s select committee has pursued Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. He recalls the 1984 inquiry into Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon, when S. Nadesan argued that Parliament had no lawful procedure for trying a judge, and India’s Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, and explains how Parliament gained and then voluntarily gave up judicial power over privilege, citing his own privilege case in 1992. He lists eight faults in the present inquiry, from charges without supporting evidence to no list of witnesses and undue haste, and predicts that the President’s unease will embolden those resisting.
අධිකරණයේ හා විධායකයේ ගැටුම
After the university teachers, Ivan writes, the stage has been taken by judicial officers and lawyers, provoked by a thug attack on the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission, who had been publicly criticised by the President. He argues that the 1978 system copied the American presidency without its checks, giving the president power to appoint judges and limiting judicial review. Neville Samarakoon, though appointed as a friend of J.R. Jayewardene, kept the court upright; the retreat came under Sarath N. Silva, whose misconduct his successors never corrected. The judiciary, he warns, cannot defeat the government within this collapsing system.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka stands on the brink of the collapse of its political system, as N.M. Perera predicted of J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 constitution. He cautions the new opposition Movement Against Lawlessness against idealising the 17th Amendment, since the constitution lets the president stand above the law as a constitutional dictator. The removal of limits on election spending has put black money in control of sectors from the stock market to energy, and even a change of government would not rescue the system. He draws a symbolic parallel between Prabhakaran’s rise by eliminating other Tamil leaders and what may be unfolding in the Sinhala South.
විශ්රාම ජීවිතය සැලසුම් කරගැනීම
Writing as he prepares to retire, Ivan offers readers near retirement age his thoughts on planning the years ahead. He contrasts a retired acquaintance who kept working for the sake of purpose with J.R. Jayewardene, who had nothing to do after leaving office, and recalls how books and routine carried him through the monotony of prison. He urges retirees to keep the mind active through reading and chess, to write down their experiences, to keep an independent income and avoid fraudulent high-interest schemes, and to form cooperatives; he describes his own plans for himself and his wife and an idea for a small village of artists and writers.
දේශපාලන ක්රමයේ ගමනක අවසානයද?
Ivan argues that the political system is collapsing so fast that an explosion may be near. He cites some 600,000 people wanted on warrants, about 11 in every 100 adults, a conviction rate of around 4% against 70% in India, and extortion from private buses running to hundreds of millions of rupees a month. He traces the growth of a lumpen class of contract killers, extortionists and drug dealers to the post-1977 system, to politicians’ private militias and to the auction of liquor licences being replaced by patronage, and gives examples of land frauds, including a woman who came to him for help in Chandrika Kumaratunga’s time.
රාජපක්ෂ ආණ්ඩුවට වැරදුණේ කොතැනද?
Ivan warns that Sri Lanka is again drifting into conflict with India, repeating J.R. Jayewardene’s mistake of the 1980s, when the Vadamarachchi operation led to Indian intervention. The Rajapaksa government, he argues, rightly won the war but had no vision for peace: it failed to account for the losses of war and allegations of atrocities, forgot that it had defeated a domestic group rather than a foreign army, and did not keep its promise to India of a political solution. Much has been done for resettlement and rehabilitation, but not what was essential — reform of the whole system of government.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ පරිහානිය හා එය ජයගැනීම
Ivan’s submission to the parliamentary select committee on the conduct and discipline of MPs. He cites a survey in which only 12% of people trusted Parliament, and traces the decline through land grabs and permits, thugs and private militias, and black money in elections, contrasting today’s spending with the limits of 1965 and 1970. He recalls the L.M.D. de Silva and Thalgodapitiya commissions, which led to MPs being expelled, and argues that the assets and liabilities law should be enforced, with declarations published on a parliament website. He also proposes a German-style mixed electoral system instead of the plan of the Dinesh Gunawardena committee.
වැරදුණේ කොතැනද? පැරණි වම හා නව වම
Marking N.M. Perera’s 106th birth anniversary, Ivan rejects the view — shared by the Frontline Socialists about the JVP — that the Left failed by abandoning class struggle for coalition politics. The old Left’s leaders were middle-class intellectuals of great learning, as Mick Moore described, and able administrators: Anil Moonesinghe made the CTB profitable and handed commission cars to the board, while Leslie Goonewardene refused Yugoslav money. The LSSP might have beaten the UNP in 1947 had it not opposed the war and fled to India, and lacked a Gandhi to hold it together. Its real error was believing socialism could be built through coalitions and abandoning its minority-rights policies; Colvin R. de Silva told Ivan the 1978 Constitution was better for minorities than his own of 1972. The JVP had devotion but no study, and should use parliamentary politics to pursue achievable reforms.