Dr. Neville Fernando and Lankan politics
A conversation from 1991 with Dr. Neville Fernando, recalled at his death, in which a government backbencher explained how Parliament was bought — and why, Victor Ivan argues, it has never recovered.
The reality of the system
Duty-free permits, super-grade vehicles and an assets law with two open loopholes. Victor Ivan uses the perks of Parliament to show how the system really works — including his own part in prising the declarations open.
ස්වාධීන කොමිෂන් සභා මරා දැමීමට ඉඩ දෙමු ද?
Months after the first Constitutional Council’s term ended, no new members have been appointed, and vacancies in the Court of Appeal cannot be filled. Whatever its flaws, the 17th Amendment was an important step towards good governance; the editorial says the commissions matter to the public, not the politicians, and it is for the public to save them.
ලොකු බණ්ඩාර න්යාය
Justice Minister W.J.M. Lokubandara has announced that a public officer facing bribery charges need not be suspended. The note shows that the Establishments Code says the opposite, and that the minister’s ‘doctrine’ was invented to protect the Public Trustee.
අල්ලස් කොමිසමේ හුස්ම හිරවීම
The President and two of the Bribery Commission’s members oppose Justice Minister W.J.M. Lokubandara’s proposals to change the commission’s membership. The editorial argues that filling independent commissions with retired judges and lawyers has failed and slights other professions, that both government and opposition want to control the commissions, and that the Constitutional Council has not appointed new members as the 17th Amendment requires. Commissioners need courage as well as learning, like Neville Samarakoon.
ශෘද සාක්ෂිය හිරී වැටීම
Drawing on Daya Somasundaram’s ‘Scarred Minds’, Ivan argues that two decades of mass violence in north and south have numbed the whole society’s conscience. He attacks FM radio stations for feeding the public trivia, likens the ruin of other sports and then cricket itself to the decay of an ageing, politicised bureaucracy, recounts how the 17th Amendment was distorted and is blocked by the President, and reminds Ranil Wickremesinghe of his broken promise of the rule of law.
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.
අඳ-ගොළු-බිහිරි පාර්ලිමේන්තුව
Ivan argues that Parliament, unlike legislatures elsewhere, ignores citizens’ complaints and media exposures. His examples include the Bribery Commission’s ruling on Mangala Samaraweera’s credit-card spending, its refusal to act on his own complaint against the Chief Justice, and Ravaya’s 2001 exposure of abuses by the Public Trustee, including misuse of the Samarakoon fund meant for poor couples’ dowries. He cites the Marga survey and the IBA report on the judiciary, which Parliament never debated, and the UNP’s silence on the Chief Justice now it is in government.
මේව දැකල පණ පලයන් පෙරේදා
Ivan recounts eight numbered first-person incidents about the judiciary: a former PA minister urging a friend to ‘shape’ Ivan over the Chief Justice; a judge’s tale of a colleague who fathered his maid’s child; a journalist spreading word that the government would drop impeachment; talk with an Attorney General’s officer; a judge’s account of W.J.M. Lokubandara’s changed stance; a Constitutional Council member alleged to draw his daughter’s salary; a bribe paid for Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the SLFP case; and Abeysinghe, who tried to strangle Lenin Ratnayake.
අගවිනිසුරුගේ ඊළග රංගනය
The government thinks it can find the votes to curb the President’s power to dissolve Parliament, but Ivan notes she controls the urgent-bill route and the Chief Justice decides constitutionality. Sarath N. Silva may protect her as before or switch to the new rulers, and either choice harms the country; he criticises the justice minister’s wish to use the Chief Justice as she did. A second section faults the Elections Commissioner and Auditor General for saying they cannot refer offenders to the Bribery Commission.