Prime cause of the crisis
On the 74th independence anniversary Victor Ivan finds the public discussion unusually advanced, then argues that Parliament itself is illegally constituted and points to the Jayewardene Centre as the founding example.
Some insights into the NMSJ’s proposed constitutional reforms
The National Movement for Social Justice publishes its reform proposals, and Victor Ivan finds the shadow of the 19th Amendment over them — another attempt, he argues, to tie down a president who remains above the law.
Judiciary and the crisis
How the spine of the judiciary was broken. Victor Ivan follows the line from the taming of Parliament through Neville Samarakoon to Sarath Silva, and asks what a court could still do in a crisis like this.
Ugly State!
Victor Ivan asks the President, the Chief Justice and the Speaker to shut their eyes and look properly at the state they run — including a Parliament whose members trade with the government they sit in.
Betrayal of the nation
Going to Geneva is called treachery in Sri Lanka. Victor Ivan, who did it and won, sets out the Tony Fernando case and the judgment Parliament could reverse tomorrow if it chose to.
Constitutionality and Basil Rajapaksa
Basil Rajapaksa’s National List seat, examined against the Constitution and the international covenant Sri Lanka has already been found to have breached. Victor Ivan asks whether the law will simply be ignored.
The crisis of not having mature leaders
Six opposition leaders, all of them products of the old order. Victor Ivan asks what a mature leader would look like and why the post-independence period has produced so few.
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.
Alas, Sri Lanka!
Victor Ivan recounts taking the collapse of the state to the Speaker, to the Auditor General and finally to the Supreme Court with 62 signatures behind him, and being met each time with silence.
First, rescue Parliament, then the country
Johan Galtung once told Victor Ivan what Sri Lanka would become. Thirty years on the column takes that forecast as its starting point and argues the Parliament must be rescued before the country can be.