Executive Gobbles up Judiciary
Why did the President, against every accepted norm of morality, appoint Sarath N. Silva to the vacant post of Chief Justice at a time when very serious allegations against him were being inquired into before the Supreme Court? And how will that act work on society and on politics?
Big and mighty get away, small ones have to pay
After reports that most members of the legislature break the assets declaration rule they enacted themselves, the President has ordered every cabinet and deputy minister to hand over five years of declarations at once. Enforcing the law late, and only because a newspaper pressed, still deserves praise.
Dishonourable acts taint an ‘honourable’ judicial service
The questions raised about the Judicial Service by the conduct of Magistrate Lenin Ratnayake, District Judge Upali Abeyratne and Attorney General Sarath N. Silva — three men at three different levels of it — are serious indeed.
A government, an actor and an audio cassette
The PA government is pushing itself towards political extinction for the sake of a film actor. The disrepute the Channel 9 scandal has brought on the government and on the President who leads it is great, and the story shows how much weight men like Sanath Gunatilleke, who gate-crashed into the PA at the last moment, came to carry.
Tapping for gossip not national security
The telephone was once a status symbol; now it is how people talk, and the computer and e-mail will follow it into every house. In a country facing a real threat to national security, the intelligence service is reportedly being used to listen to political gossip rather than to investigate the threats.
The all important Chief Justice
Power has been understood since Aristotle as divisible into three — legislative, executive, judicial. Sri Lanka’s recent judicial history holds tragic instances of judges bending to the narrow political interests of government leaders, and famous instances of judges standing up to them. This column is about which way the office of Chief Justice now points.
Politics behind Neelan’s martyrdom
Neelan Tiruchelvam, one of the main authors of the government’s devolution package, was assassinated just as the constitutional amendment carrying it was being brought before parliament ahead of a snap presidential election. The LTTE is plainly responsible — and what Ivan examines is what the government did to make the package unpassable long before the killing.