කර්ම චක්රය
H.R. Piyasiri, the UNP organiser for Devinuwara, has been arrested over the shooting of his own son. He was the most powerful figure to rise against the JVP’s second insurrection in the south — an insurrection that, Ivan writes, created conditions in which he could not have survived without killing. From there the column turns to the fate of the Public Trustee, to the attorney general’s interpretation that protected him, and to the friendship he kept with the chief justice.
සාම කතා හා පාරමී ඝාතනය
The president telephoned the Colombo office of the Uthayan on Tuesday the 20th, had the editor put on the line, and sent a message through him to the LTTE leadership proposing a secret understanding. The LTTE answered by killing the army’s third in command. Ivan reads that as its answer to the whole approach — and records what the president promised in return about holding the Karuna faction still for a fortnight.
පාර්ලිමේන්තුවද? අධිකරණයද?
The question of which is supreme has come up again. Ivan goes back to the last time — the restraining order the Supreme Court issued against the speaker over an impeachment motion against the chief justice — and then to the school admission circular, where the National Education Commission’s scheme never reached the court at all and something else was put before it instead.
ඉරුදින හා රාවය
Irudina, the Sinhala sister of The Sunday Leader, ran a critical piece on Ravaya headlined ‘Ravaya clipping Ranil’s wings’. Ivan welcomes the argument between papers, then answers it point by point: why Ravaya’s view of the UNP is what it is, what Ranil Wickremesinghe’s limits are, why defending a semi-autocracy is the real charge, and who else has written about Chandrika Kumaratunga.
අගවිනිසුරුට ප්රීතිමත් විශ්රාම ජීවිතයකට සුබ පැතුම්
Continuing the previous week, Ivan asks what a review of Sarath N. Silva’s judgments would
find, and answers with the record of appointments, plunder of public property, the company
he kept and the ambition to become head of state. He reports the meeting at which senior
counsel advised Chandrika Kumaratunga against appointing him — and Aloy Ratnayake’s
prediction that one day he would turn on her — and closes with the long list of lawyers and
judges who signed against him.
The Elections Commission and the 17th Amendment
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment promised. Ivan recalls Ranil Wickremesinghe’s conduct on the Constitutional Council, including his objection to Justice K.M.M.B. Kulatunga, compares India’s Election Commission, and argues that the amendment’s authors did not understand the presidential system it had to work within.
17 වැනි සංශෝධනය හා මැතිවරණ කොමිසම
Provincial elections are being held without the Elections Commission the 17th Amendment
requires, because Chandrika Kumaratunga refused to appoint one and the refusal has outlived
her. Ivan sets the Indian Election Commission against it — its own budget, its own
quasi-judicial powers, 668 million voters and 800,000 polling stations — and argues that an
amendment bolted on to a constitution built around an unaccountable president was never
going to hold.
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.
ලෙනින් රත්නායක විනය පරික්ෂණය අත්හිටුවන්නැයි ඉල්ලීමක්
In a letter to the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission, Ivan, as complainant, objects that a one-man inquiry by retired High Court judge K.A.S. Gunatilake into magistrate Lenin Ratnayake is illegal under Article 114(2). He recounts the rape allegations, the Commission’s months of silence, the three-judge committee that upheld Ravaya’s charges, Ratnayake’s 32 months of paid compulsory leave, and asks for the inquiry to be stopped and the committee’s report released to him.