President Chandrika and former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayke
Chandrika Kumaratunga launches her memoir and Shirani Bandaranayake gives the keynote. Victor Ivan, who wrote a book about Chandrika, listens to the speech and sets the record against it.
සරත් සිල්වා ගැන වැඩිදුරටත්
Ceylon Today did not print his reply uncut as promised, Ivan says, and the media that now present Sarath N. Silva as a saviour include owners who won judgments from him when he needed their support. Silva, once slated as the common opposition candidate, still poses as a reformer. Ivan contrasts Justice Mark Fernando’s rulings, which forced the only free and fair election since 1977, with Silva’s court, which turned away election petitioners. Four of six UN Human Rights Committee findings against Sri Lanka concern Silva’s judgments, among them S.B. Dissanayake’s and Tony Fernando’s, jailed for contempt after petitioning a bench Silva himself led.
සරත් සිල්වාගේ පුහු තර්ක
Former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva used interviews in Mawbima and Ceylon Today to recast himself and to claim that Ivan’s campaign against him grew out of a grudge from the 1971 insurrection trial. Ivan answers point by point: Silva was the most junior of five prosecutors, and Ivan’s lawyer in later cases was the lead prosecutor; the fight began when Silva, as Attorney General, shielded Magistrate Lenin Ratnayake. He recounts his challenge to the Attorney General’s criminal defamation indictments, rejected by Justice Mark Fernando but upheld by the UN Human Rights Committee, and the pending Supreme Court inquiry when Silva was made Chief Justice.
චෝගම් ආශ්රයෙන් උගත හැකි පාඩම්
CHOGM exposed the depth of Sri Lanka’s crisis, Ivan argues: foreign lawyers were refused visas for a Bar Association event, when Param Cumaraswamy had once come freely to criticise the judiciary. The government cannot investigate war-time abuses because it fears the armed forces it now leans on, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa would not welcome it. Every insurrection and its suppression was brutal; Ivan judges the army’s conduct against the LTTE less savage than in 1989 and rejects the 40,000 figure, yet accepts crimes such as the Trincomalee killings. Sirimavo Bandaranaike prosecuted Premawathie Manamperi’s killers; Mahinda Rajapaksa has shown no such courage.
ටෝනි නිදහස ලැබීම
Tony Fernando has been freed after serving the one-year sentence for contempt imposed by a bench headed by the Chief Justice, telling supporters his only offence was reading a constitutional provision in court. Ivan alleges the Chief Justice orchestrated the assault on him in prison. Further sections report Param Cumaraswamy’s Colombo lectures criticising the Bar Association under Ananda Wijesekera, a Dinakara article defending the Chief Justice by Nelson Perera, and new evidence of Tilanga Sumathipala’s links with Dhammika Amarasinghe.
හිරේ සිටිය යුත්තේ කව්ද?
After a bench headed by the Chief Justice rejected Tony Fernando’s revision application against his one-year sentence for contempt, Ivan argues that the bench included judges Fernando had named as respondents, that the judgment identifies no contempt beyond raising his voice, and that it is Sarath N. Silva who belongs in prison. Further sections contrast the Constitutional Council’s published character criteria, drafted by H.L. de Silva, with the Chief Justice’s conduct and criticise delays in appointing the Judicial Service Commission.
නීතියේ පාලනය ඔලුවෙන් සිටුවීම
Eighty days after Tony Fernando was jailed, the Bar Association has done nothing despite Param Cumaraswamy’s appeal, though his case was raised at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and the Asian Human Rights Commission’s petition has gathered over 3,000 signatures. Ivan argues that the President cannot act because she appointed Sarath N. Silva to control the Supreme Court, and that responsibility therefore falls on the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
කෙළෙහි ගුණ දැක්වීම
Ivan notes that the President was met in London by Ronnie Peiris, who had helped her in exile after Vijaya Kumaratunga’s murder and has since grown rich, and says the UNP’s promised inquiries into such figures have gone quiet. Further sections note that she named Sarath N. Silva as a drafter of her constitution though he sat on the bench reviewing it, praise Anton Balasingham’s endorsement of Neelan Tiruchelvam’s 1996 devolution plan, and ask why no one has sought Tony Fernando’s release.
සිංහයා, වෘකයා, කැනහිලා හා නිලමැස්සා
Tony Fernando’s jailing and beating shocked the world but not Sri Lanka’s conscience. Ivan notes Param Cumaraswamy’s appeal to the Bar Association, the President’s refusal to pardon Tony, which he ties to her mutual protection pact with Sarath N. Silva, and the Prime Minister’s indifference. He attacks three newspapers backed by the President and Mangala Samaraweera for smearing Tony and Ravaya, recalls their defence of PA-era crimes, and ends with a fable of scavengers to rank their journalists.
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.