අධිකරණ සේවා කොමිසමේ අර්බුදය
Both members of the Judicial Service Commission other than the chief justice have resigned, saying there is no room in it to act according to their consciences — Shirani Bandaranayake, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court after the chief justice, and T.B. Weerasuriya, the senior-most career judge. Ivan’s verdict on the chief justice is the harshest in the archive, and his advice to the new president is to drop him before the rot spreads.
අනිච්චාවත සංඛාරා!
The association of judges of the lower courts has put out an official statement welcoming the appointment of two members to the Judicial Service Commission without the constitutional council’s concurrence — the same commission from which two Supreme Court judges had resigned saying they could not act according to their consciences. Parliament is chiefly to blame for never appointing the council, Ivan writes, and even the JVP, which stands as the alternative, has not treated the question as important.
සටන්කාමී මුනිවරයෙකුගේ තටු සිඳීම
The Supreme Court has asked Elmo Perera to show cause why he should not be struck off the roll of lawyers — a man who has fought fearlessly all his life for the people’s freedom and fundamental rights, for the independence of the judiciary and for the honour of the legal profession. He came to the bar after retiring as Surveyor General, and the case chosen to punish him is one he brought himself about the constitution, public rights and the courts.
Downfall of Sri Lanka: The root cause
Not corruption but ignorance, Victor Ivan argues — a literate society that never learned to think. He traces it through the colonial historians, through Dharmapala, and through a constitution violated since 1948 without protest.
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.
චෞර රැජින පොත කරළියට ගැනීම
When Chandrika Kumaratunga returned to politics to back Maithripala Sirisena, the state-owned Lake House papers began serialising, without Ivan’s permission, his book Chaura Rajina (‘The Queen of Deceit’), written against her. Ivan compares the two presidents, arguing that Mahinda did more harm than Chandrika. He reveals that he refused Mahinda Rajapaksa’s expectation that he would help against Kumaratunga, and a direct request from the President, by telephone, for help in the case against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, and concludes that no social struggle is entirely pure.
ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ ගති ලක්ෂණ
Ivan examines how the President resolved the Eighteenth Amendment dispute by seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion on 5 November 2014, which he says shows a judiciary tamed since the impeachment of Shirani Bandaranayake, recalling J.R. Jayewardene’s treatment of the courts. He criticises the Commissioner of Elections’ passivity over the election’s timing and the Pope’s visit, and warns that the opposition’s disunity and factionalism could hand the government a third term and push the country towards anarchy.
මේ මොහොතේ කළහැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Contrasting the prosecution of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa with the removal of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, Ivan compares India, whose leaders built a nation and a democracy, with Sri Lanka, where independence brought ethnic, religious and caste conflict. With a presidential election near, he weighs the idea of a common candidate against Ranil Wickremesinghe’s own bid and his promise to abolish the presidency, and floats the idea of a third social movement for system change, inviting readers to write to a dedicated email address.
සරත් සිල්වාගේ කාල බෝම්බය
Ivan, no admirer of Sarath N. Silva, nevertheless takes seriously the former Chief Justice’s argument that Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot contest a third term. Silva’s thesis, set out in nine points, is that the Eighteenth Amendment, passed in 2010 after Rajapaksa had already been sworn in for his second term, cannot give him a right to a third term that he did not have when re-elected. Ivan compares term limits under presidential systems in France, Brazil and elsewhere and argues that what matters is honouring the people’s sovereignty.
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.