සුනාමි නඩුව
Martin Luther King could look to the US Supreme Court with hope; Prabhakaran and Tamils cannot feel the same about Sri Lanka’s. Ivan recalls the Tamil rights cases that failed, from the Kodakan Pillai citizenship case onwards, then describes the hearing of the petitions against the tsunami mechanism, noting a special guest linked to the Chief Justice’s Diyawanna Oya affair.
නැති අවුල් ඇති කිරීම
Rulers who ignore the basic law are a lasting source of Sri Lanka’s political confusion, from the United Front’s new constitution of 1972 to the UNP’s in 1978. Ivan shows that everyone, the Chief Justice included, once accepted that the President’s second term began on 22 December 1999, as the transitional provisions of the 2000 draft constitution confirm, and argues that the election should be held this year.
ජවිපෙ මල්ලිලා හා අගවිනිසුරු
The Chief Justice took up the JVP’s and the Hela Urumaya’s fundamental rights petitions against the tsunami management structure filed on 5 July. A second note, ‘S.B. cries for freedom’, finds S.B. Dissanayake in the Merchant ward expecting release at any moment and blaming Bribery Commission Director-General Piyasena Ranasinghe for his troubles.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය
Must the next presidential election be held at the end of this year, as Ranil Wickremesinghe says, or next year, as the President says? The dispute arises from her two swearings-in, publicly in 1999 and secretly in 2000. The editorial traces the tangle to the Chief Justice and notes that the Elections Commissioner who must resolve it is past retirement age and in poor health.
පරා වළල්ලක් වෙන්නට යන ටෝනිගේ නඩු තීන්දුව
The Human Rights Committee’s ruling against Sri Lanka over the one-year sentence imposed on Tony Fernando shows how the Supreme Court’s high-handed policy flouted law and natural justice. A Chief Justice with any shame would resign; Ivan notes that the fourteen-member committee included India’s P.N. Bhagwati.
අධිකරණ අපහාසය සහ “ලංකාදීප” කර්තෘ
MPs cannot change parties without losing their seats, yet none who crossed to the government has lost his. The editorial observes that the Chief Justice’s closest friends suffer most from his political theatre, and argues that Siri Ranasinghe committed no offence by publishing the UNP’s statement criticising the Bogollagama judgment.
නීතිඥ සංගම් නිලවරණ ප්රතිඵලය: අගවිනිසුරුට එරෙහි ව ඉදිරිපත් වූ විශ්වාසභංගයකි
Though only lawyers voted, the Bar Association election was as important as a general election, because the Supreme Court had become the centre of political power. The editorial reads Desmond Fernando’s late entry and victory over the Chief Justice’s trusted ally as a vote of no confidence in Sarath N. Silva.
කබරගොයා තලගොයා කරගැනීම
A short note on the JVP: Wimal Weerawansa and his colleagues, who saw the Chief Justice as a demon while in opposition, have become his best guardians, and the party’s change on these two basic issues suggests more changes to come.
අධිකරණයේ ගරා වැටීම
A Daily Mirror front-page photograph of the Hyde Park rally held on the 21st for S.B. Dissanayake’s release prompts reflection on where the crisis around the Chief Justice is heading. The Bar Association and every party looked away while the cancer spread, and their opportunism now threatens a complete collapse of the system of justice.
වංචාවක් සිදුවීද?
The biggest question raised by the judgment that sent S.B. Dissanayake to prison is whether the Chief Justice deceived him: the evidence suggests S.B. dropped his legal challenge on a promise he never doubted. If so, the editorial asks, how should such a deception be dealt with, and did the other judges know?