Paradise in Tears
Written from a sick bed after Shehan Karunatilaka praised ‘Paradise in Tears’. Victor Ivan recalls Mangala Samaraweera’s intervention, the Indian investigator who bought three copies, and the ten-year struggle against Sarath Silva.
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.
Judiciary and the crisis
How the spine of the judiciary was broken. Victor Ivan follows the line from the taming of Parliament through Neville Samarakoon to Sarath Silva, and asks what a court could still do in a crisis like this.
Betrayal of the nation
Going to Geneva is called treachery in Sri Lanka. Victor Ivan, who did it and won, sets out the Tony Fernando case and the judgment Parliament could reverse tomorrow if it chose to.
What is wrong with the Judiciary?
The jailing of Ranjan Ramanayake for contempt turns public sympathy against the courts. Victor Ivan asks what has gone wrong inside the Judiciary and answers with a series of cases from his own reporting.
True status of the Judiciary
A court that approves the removal of the people’s own instruments of sovereignty. Victor Ivan sets the Indian Supreme Court beside the Sri Lankan bench and returns to the years he spent fighting Sarath Nanda Silva.
The role of journalism
Asked why he proposed closing Ravaya, Victor Ivan answers with an account of what the paper was for — the battle against Sarath Nanda Silva, the criminal defamation law, and the case he took to the United Nations.
Anarchy and the Judiciary
The new government wants the corruption cases withdrawn and the courts will not oblige. Victor Ivan reads the resulting cold war as the one place in the state where something is still being defended.
Decline of the Judiciary
Sri Lanka could have been saved by its courts. Victor Ivan sets the Indian Supreme Court’s record beside the Sri Lankan bench and finds a judiciary as backward as the legislature it was meant to check.
Foundations of incivility
Why does a country tolerate constitutional violation after constitutional violation without protest? Victor Ivan looks for the answer in the intellectual poverty of the Left, the language question and the habit of judicial silence.