රිසානා ඛේදවාචකය හා තරුණ පරපුරේ සිහිනය
Ivan argues that the execution of Rizana Nafeek exposes a rotten state as much as a harsh foreign court: it was Sri Lankan institutions that turned a child into an adult on her birth certificate, passport and medical papers. Migrant workers’ remittances are now the economy’s largest earner, yet housemaids are treated worse than beggars. He urges the state to replace the export of housemaids with trained craftsmen, making vocational training compulsory for school leavers and and sending them abroad, as graduates of the German technical institute at Ratmalana already go.
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.
ක්රමය කුණුවී තිබෙන තරම පෙන්නුම් කරන නඩුවක්
Ivan sets out a fundamental-rights petition by T.R. Ratnasiri, a deputy superintendent of Customs, who for ten years has fought at his own expense to pursue a Rs 619 million customs fraud case against Colombo Dockyard. He traces how the inquiry was halted under a 2003 tax amnesty, revived, then undermined by three judgments of Sarath N. Silva that curtailed Customs’ powers, and how the petition accuses Attorney General Mohan Peiris and Treasury Secretary P.B. Jayasundera of acting to have the appeal withdrawn over the Director General’s objections. The courts, he notes, have shown little interest in hearing it.
අර්බුදයේ තවත් වැදගත් පැතිකඩක්
Ivan argues that the courts, which should protect citizens from abuse of power, have also helped create the crisis. After Neville Samarakoon, Justice Mark Fernando tried to carry forward a creative tradition of fundamental-rights jurisprudence until the Kumaratunga era drove him out; Ivan recounts long conversations with him after his retirement about the 1978 constitution, which Fernando helped draft with Sarath Coorey and A.J. Wilson. Citing Sarath N. Silva’s near-confession over the Helping Hambantota case and Ranil Wickremesinghe on crossovers, he argues that the courts have distorted the law, and that the bureaucracy and the rich who control governments share the blame with politicians.
විශ්වවිද්යාල ආචාර්යවරුන්ගේ සටන
Ivan sees the three-month strike by university teachers as another expression of the crisis of the political system. He argues that the education system itself has helped produce the crisis, turning out professionals whose self-interest holds back society, and cites misconduct by leading accountancy firms. He agrees that Sri Lanka’s spending on education, and on higher education in particular, is among the lowest, and backs the demand for 6% of national income, but warns that such demands, better salaries and depoliticised universities cannot be won within this corrupt system, which the teachers must learn to confront.
යහපත් දේශපාලන ක්රමයක් සඳහා සිහින දැකීමේ අවශ්යතාව
Writing during the 2012 provincial council elections, Ivan examines the electoral system created in 1978. Quoting Election Commissioner Chandananda de Silva’s report on the 1989 election, he argues that the system hands the party holding the presidency control of Parliament and the public service, and that open vote-buying and campaigns costing billions have turned elections into auctions. He recalls watching money flow to Chandrika Kumaratunga’s campaigns and Leslie Goonewardene’s refusal of foreign funds for his party, and warns that the country’s richest people have made their fortunes by funding politicians and now rule from behind the scenes.
විය හැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lanka stands on the brink of the collapse of its political system, as N.M. Perera predicted of J.R. Jayewardene’s 1977 constitution. He cautions the new opposition Movement Against Lawlessness against idealising the 17th Amendment, since the constitution lets the president stand above the law as a constitutional dictator. The removal of limits on election spending has put black money in control of sectors from the stock market to energy, and even a change of government would not rescue the system. He draws a symbolic parallel between Prabhakaran’s rise by eliminating other Tamil leaders and what may be unfolding in the Sinhala South.
අපට කළහැක්කේ කුමක්ද?
Ivan argues that Sri Lankan society has become spiritually rotten after thirty years of violence within and between communities, which left widows, orphans and a population traumatised by fear, and armed criminals serving both rebels and the state. The war was won but the great transformation that should have followed was not attempted, and the corrupt political system is now close to collapse. Using the parable of a crumbling house, he proposes that a small group with a sense of justice should leave it and build a model community free of caste, race and religious divisions, and he invites debate on the idea.
දේශපාලන ක්රමයේ ගමනක අවසානයද?
Ivan argues that the political system is collapsing so fast that an explosion may be near. He cites some 600,000 people wanted on warrants, about 11 in every 100 adults, a conviction rate of around 4% against 70% in India, and extortion from private buses running to hundreds of millions of rupees a month. He traces the growth of a lumpen class of contract killers, extortionists and drug dealers to the post-1977 system, to politicians’ private militias and to the auction of liquor licences being replaced by patronage, and gives examples of land frauds, including a woman who came to him for help in Chandrika Kumaratunga’s time.
ප්රමිතියක් නැති සිමෙන්ති
Ivan warns that the post-war building boom, from highways and ports to houses for the displaced, is using cement that does not meet legal standards. After the Standards Institution suspended certification for a Lucky cement consignment from Pakistan in 2011, the Auditor-General found that imported cement had failed all 47 compressive-strength tests between 2009 and 2011 yet was released to the market, and the Cement Corporation itself was caught repacking expired cement. He asks why engineers and authorities are silent.