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.
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.
අධිකරණයේ හා විධායකයේ ගැටුම
After the university teachers, Ivan writes, the stage has been taken by judicial officers and lawyers, provoked by a thug attack on the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission, who had been publicly criticised by the President. He argues that the 1978 system copied the American presidency without its checks, giving the president power to appoint judges and limiting judicial review. Neville Samarakoon, though appointed as a friend of J.R. Jayewardene, kept the court upright; the retreat came under Sarath N. Silva, whose misconduct his successors never corrected. The judiciary, he warns, cannot defeat the government within this collapsing system.
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.
කරුගේ ඇස් පෑදීම
Ivan welcomes Karu Jayasuriya’s call for the fragmented opposition to unite under a common banner to abolish the executive presidency, noting that for the first time Jayasuriya speaks of the political system as a whole. A statement is not enough, he argues, without a working programme, and he sets out six observations: the system has run its historical course; it fragments the opposition; it has lost legitimacy; it lets ruling groups drain the country’s wealth; it encourages corruption by removing old safeguards such as the ban on MPs doing business with the state; and it makes the rule of law, urged by the Lessons Learnt commission, impossible to achieve.
සෝභිත හිමිගේ පැතුම
Unable to attend Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero’s 70th birthday, Ivan honours him as one of the few learned people who never stayed silent in the face of wrongdoing. He recalls telling two vice-chancellors, G.L. Peiris and Arjuna Aluwihare, after the second JVP revolt that intellectuals’ silence was the cause of youth rebellion. Sobitha Thero called for abolishing the executive presidency and changing the electoral system in his lifetime, and Ivan notes a growing chorus — Maithripala Sirisena, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, government MPs, the Communist Party, the JHU — for change. He contrasts the old Westminster system, with by-elections, constituency MPs, spending limits and a Prime Minister in Parliament, with the executive presidency, which concentrates power in one person above the law and turns governance into a system of plunder.
දේශපාලන ප්රතිසංස්කරණ මගහැරයෑමේ හැකියාවක් නැත
Had the country reorganised itself after the war, Ivan argues, it would have satisfied its people and reduced foreign pressure. Three insurrections have cost over 100,000 lives and many of the best leaders — a foreign scholar told a friend that no comparable country had lost so many — yet the causes were never addressed and the Youth Commission’s findings, including on caste, were ignored. Every institution has decayed: Parliament, a discredited judiciary with a 4% conviction rate, schools reliant on tuition, hospitals short of drugs, chaotic buses, a tangled public pay system. Taxes on flour and fuel fall on ordinary people without matching services; corruption is built into a system of black-money elections; and the President stands above the law, which is why the 13th and 17th Amendments were never binding. Only a fundamental reorganisation, including a fair settlement with the Tamils, can prevent permanent division.
වාද කරන්නට පෙර ප්රකෘති සිහිය ඇති කරගැනීම වැදගත්ය
Answering Gamini Viyangoda and Jayatilaka Kammallaweera, who accused him of labelling them and of defending the Rajapaksa regime, Ivan restates his thesis: after losing socialism they adopted the ethnic crisis as their cause and lost their judgement when the LTTE fell, as he once feared a coup under Wijeweera’s spell before 1971. He rejects Viyangoda’s claim that he attacked individuals for twenty years and turned to ‘the system’ only to protect Rajapaksa, noting that his ‘Chaura Rajya’ series on reforming the predatory state ran in Ravaya in 2002, before ‘Chaura Rajina’ (2006), and listing earlier articles on system change. He recalls the Kaha Pati (yellow ribbon) campaign of 2000, the all-party talks on his reform draft in Parliament in 2001, and the 2006 Kobbekaduwa round table, and argues that reform must come by consensus, as Mandela achieved.
දේශපාලන ක්රමය නිරුවත් කිරීම
Ivan argues that the collapse of the J.R. Jayewardene system, which N.M. Perera called a ‘hotchpotch’ of presidential systems, has only accelerated even under a popular President. Chandrika Kumaratunga seized control of public finance from Parliament and used Sarath N. Silva to break the independence of the judiciary; corruption and politicians’ reliance on local criminals for security did the rest. While Wijeweera and Prabhakaran threatened the country, the public could not see the rot; Prabhakaran’s defeat has stripped the system naked. Ivan lists fifteen recent ‘scenes’, from the Golden Key and Sakvithi collapses to the Tangalle murder of a British tourist, and calls on the President to lead a national reorganisation with all parties.