ජනතාවට පොත පෙරළීම
Chandrika Kumaratunga has had her biography written by a well-known biographer, with the publisher’s US$40,000 fee paid by the Ports Authority under Mangala Samaraweera and launches planned from Oslo to Berlin at public expense. Ivan traces the practice to J.R. Jayewardene, then turns to a heartless Parliament and the coming Supreme Court interpretation, noting that everyone has suffered at the Chief Justice’s hands except the President.
කපුවා කපෝති ද?
Three notes. Mangala Samaraweera, who brought the President and the JVP together and taught the JVP that it could capture the SLFP after Chandrika, now faces the collapse of his work; the Hela Urumaya’s crocodile tears for Major Muthaliff; and the Lankadeepa editor Siri Ranasinghe’s apology to the Supreme Court over the UNP statement.
ජවිපෙ සුභ සිහිනය
The JVP’s dream of power was really one Mangala Samaraweera built for it, with a crown for himself in the interval after the President. Now the joint mechanism leaves the party a choice between looking foolish in government and leaving it; Ivan points to India, with a Sikh prime minister and a Muslim president, as proof that ethnic divisions can be overcome.
When must the Presidential Election be held?
Was Chandrika Kumaratunga’s second term due to end in December 2005 or December 2006? Victor Ivan works through the constitutional arithmetic. G.L. Peiris holds that the public oath of 22 December 1999 governs, making the election due in 2005; Mangala Samaraweera replies that a two-term president is entitled to twelve years, placing it in 2006 and resting on an oath the President is said to have taken in secret on 12 November 2000. Ivan tests the twelve-year claim against J.R. Jayewardene, who served two terms and got eleven: having gone to the country early in October 1982, he took his second oath in February 1983 and lost a year. Article 31(3A)(d), quoted in full, sets the term from the date of the oath. He then explains why she took the December oath at all — after the bomb attack on her campaign, her advisers invoked the doctrine of necessity so that her death would not force a fresh election, an insurance that has since become a liability. A secret oath cannot invalidate a public one, he concludes, and any attempt to make it do so will bring on another crisis.
අල්ලස් හෝ දූෂණ චෝදනා විමර්ශන කොමිෂන් සභාවේ සභාපතිගේ ලිපිය සහ කර්තෘ සටහන
Replying to Ravaya’s article of 7 September 2003, Chairman S. Ananda Coomaraswamy rejects the charge of partisanship, saying files on several senior ministers of the current government were also closed for lack of evidence, that the Mangala Samaraweera decision was unanimous and followed a lengthy inquiry, and that the Supreme Court can review it. The editor’s note argues that ministers may not draw extra funds such as a Telecom credit card beyond legal allowances, and that review is meaningless without an independent Supreme Court.
ජවිපෙට සිදුවුණේ කුමක් ද?
Ivan argues that the President used alliance talks with the JVP to strengthen her own hand, while the JVP paid any price, even abandoning its opposition to the executive presidency, before realising it had been deceived. Contrasting the JVP’s shallow leadership with the traditional Left, which taught the country democracy and won lasting social reforms, he says the party remains where it was in 1971. Further sections attack Mahinda Wijesekara’s claim that developing countries have too much democracy and question Mangala Samaraweera’s leadership of a media-freedom protest.
අල්ලස් දූෂණ, දේශපාලනය හා යුක්තිය පසිඳලීම
At a Transparency International seminar Ivan asked Bribery Commission chairman S. Ananda Coomaraswamy why the commission had cleared Mangala Samaraweera over a Rs. 500,000 credit card from a state body. He contrasts the commission with former commissioner Neelum Gamage, who resisted pressure from President Wijetunga over Wack Silva, and argues that politicians enriched by corruption will never accept an independent commission. A second section criticises the legal community’s belated alarm at Mark Fernando’s early retirement and describes the decay of the judiciary under Sarath N. Silva.
මංගලගේ බළලා මල්ලෙන් එළියට
Mangala Samaraweera’s call to abolish the executive presidency, Ivan argues, reflects the SLFP’s real aim of making Chandrika Kumaratunga an executive prime minister after her term ends, just as Ranil Wickremesinghe wants the presidency intact for himself. Further sections cover the Elections Commissioner’s criticism of the hastily passed 17th Amendment and of Supreme Court rulings, and the Editors’ Guild submission on contempt of court.
චෞර රාජ්යය 2
Continuing his survey, Ivan shows how constitutions and laws are made to suit rulers, from J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 amendment and Kumaratunga’s 2000 bid to change the electoral system by buying MPs to the UNP’s tax amnesty law challenged by Nihal Sri Ameresekere. He faults Attorneys General for serving governments, and the Bribery Commission for clearing Mangala Samaraweera and ignoring evidence of state resources used in the 2001 election. Short items follow on party discipline, the President’s tales, V. Anandasangaree’s defiance of the LTTE, the JVP and Anura Bandaranaike.
මුට්ටියට පෙර හොරා යැවීම
Ivan describes Mangala Samaraweera’s push for the President to seize power quickly, possibly driven by a pending case over an attack on poster-pasting youths during the last election, and reads her takeover of the Development Lottery Board as a test of the Prime Minister. He warns that a clash between presidential and parliamentary power could turn bloody, and urges a French-style cohabitation in which the President leaves domestic government to the majority, while faulting the JVP, PA and UNP for opportunism over the 1978 Constitution and the independent commissions.