අහෝ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Ivan condemns the one-sided procedure by which Parliament’s select committee has pursued Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. He recalls the 1984 inquiry into Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon, when S. Nadesan argued that Parliament had no lawful procedure for trying a judge, and India’s Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, and explains how Parliament gained and then voluntarily gave up judicial power over privilege, citing his own privilege case in 1992. He lists eight faults in the present inquiry, from charges without supporting evidence to no list of witnesses and undue haste, and predicts that the President’s unease will embolden those resisting.
නයාට ගසා පොල්ල වරද්දා ගැනීම
Ivan argues that the government’s impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake has backfired: it expected her to resign, but the weak charges, the backing she has won from lawyers and the public, and international scrutiny ahead of the March Human Rights Council session have put it on the defensive. He lists this as the fourth clash between executive and judiciary under the 1978 system, after Neville Samarakoon’s time and Mark Fernando’s under Kumaratunga, and warns of a constitutional crisis if Parliament ignores a Supreme Court order, while noting that the judiciary is not blameless for the decline it now suffers.
ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ක්‍රියාත්මක වන දෝෂාභියෝග ක්‍රමය (විවේචනාත්මක විශ්ලේෂණයක්)
Ivan compares impeachment procedures in the United States, India, South Africa and Germany, where presidents and senior judges face the same process, with Sri Lanka’s, which makes it almost impossible to remove a president but easy for a parliamentary majority to remove a judge, since the charges against judges are heard by a select committee of MPs under standing orders. That imbalance, he argues, is why presidents need a loyal Supreme Court. Drawing on his own objection in the 1990s to being tried by Parliament for breach of privilege without a lawful procedure, he argues that Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake too is entitled to a fair hearing.
අගවිනිසුරුගේ දෝෂාභියෝගයෙන් පන පෙවෙන වත්කම් බැරකම් නීතිය
Two of the impeachment charges against the Chief Justice concern her asset declarations, and Ivan argues that whatever their merit they have revived a powerful but neglected law. He explains the 1975 Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Law and its 1988 amendment, which gave any citizen the right to inspect declarations and did not exempt the president. He recounts learning of the law from MP C.V. Gooneratne in the late 1980s, asking the Secretary-General of Parliament for MPs’ declarations, persuading G.L. Peiris, and later testing the Kumaratunga government and the Election Commissioners, and calls for the law to be updated and strictly enforced.
දේශපාලන ක්‍රමය සමග අධිකරණයේ බිඳ වැටීම
Ivan sees the government’s move to impeach the Chief Justice as part of the collapse of the political system. Comparing the courts of the United States, Britain and India, where the judiciary guards the constitution and the separation of powers, he shows how Sri Lanka’s constitution places the courts under the president, who appoints all senior judges, and limits their review of legislation. He criticises the Supreme Court for failing to be creative, from approving the 1982 referendum that extended Parliament’s life to its handling of the 17th Amendment, and traces the decline back beyond Sarath N. Silva to G.P.S. de Silva’s time.
ඉතිරි කිරීමේ බැංකුවේ කම්බා හොරකම
On the chairman’s orders, the National Savings Bank agreed to buy 13% of The Finance Company for Rs 390 million from four individuals — two of them directors — at about Rs 50 a share when the market price was Rs 30–32 and the real value perhaps under Rs 15, handing them some Rs 140 million. A senior officer alerted the Treasury Secretary and the President and the cheque was stopped, but the sellers were paid through Sampath Bank. The chairman, Pradeep Kariyawasam, is a political appointee and the husband of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, whom the government had placated with state posts for him when it passed her over for Asoka de Silva. Ivan warns that the case cannot be handled fairly, recalls how Sarath N. Silva destroyed the judiciary’s standing, and says no ethnic solution matters without a trustworthy judiciary.
නව අගවිනිසුරු හා මහජන අපේක්ෂා
Ivan wishes the newly appointed chief justice well — and records that he wished her predecessor well in the same way, expecting him to put right some part of the enormous damage Sarath N. Silva had done to the courts, and that it has to be said with regret that nothing of the kind happened.
නිල බලයට හෝ රාජ්‍ය බලයට සත්‍යය සදා යටපත් කළ නොහැකිය
Ivan welcomes the Human Rights Committee’s ruling as historic: the first time a Sri Lankan Supreme Court judgment in a fundamental rights case has been answered by an international body. He recounts the criminal defamation indictments brought against him before and after 1994, the Attorney General Sarath N. Silva’s role, the petition argued by Suranjith Hewamanne, his quarrel with Silva over the 1971 case, and other cases now before Geneva.
ස්වාධීන මැතිවරණ කොමිසම මරා දැමීම
Ivan argues that neither government nor opposition wants an independent Elections Commission: the President withholds approval of the Constitutional Council’s nominees and the Supreme Court declined to resolve the Elections Commissioner’s petition about his personal liability. Further sections criticise a campaign to build up Justice Shirani Bandaranayake as a future Chief Justice despite her role in the order restraining Parliament’s impeachment, and the President’s obstruction of Rajitha Senaratne’s scheme to issue freehold deeds for state land.
ටෝනිට සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද
Ivan traces Tony Fernando’s long search for redress after his employer refused to meet his private hospital bills following a workplace accident, through the Labour Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, Ombudsman, Speaker and Supreme Court, until the Chief Justice jailed him for a year for contempt and he was beaten in prison. He argues that Sarath N. Silva has placed close associates at the head of every institution of redress, including the human rights and bribery commissions, the Public Trustee and the prisons, forming an octopus-like net.