How independent are independent commissions?
Whatever the limits of the JVP’s programme, enacting the Constitutional Council and the four independent commissions of the Seventeenth Amendment before 24 September would be a first step towards changing the political culture of this country.
Giving more teeth to constitutional council
A constitutional council with the power to recommend people for the top posts, with five independent commissions under it, would be a significant step towards taking the administration out of politics. What it would need to be worth having is set out here.
Need for reforms cries out loud
An unprecedented interest in the reforms good governance needs has arisen. The UNP is demanding independent commissions for elections, the judicial service, the police and the public service under a constitutional council, and K.N. Choksy is to bring a draft bill he has prepared.
Economic mess? turn the searchlight inwards
The government is trying to put the economy right with extreme measures that have driven prices up and laid an unbearable burden on the poor, and it wants the liquidity crisis understood as something external that it could not control. The internal factor it will not admit is mismanagement.
Rehabilitating parliamentarians
A research officer is to be added to every MP’s staff. Adding one will not change the quality of what members do; what is needed is to make the staff already there work properly. What would change it is an institution the public can complain to.
Way out of the present crisis
The President’s attempt to form a government with the support of other parties is like collecting frogs into an open basket. The government will not accept Rauf Hakeem’s condition that the four commissions be set up within a hundred days, so she is pushed towards abandoning him for Ferial Ashraff.
Human rights Vs Election victory
The future of democracy in Sri Lanka appears to hang on one question: whether the Commissioner of Elections can hold the coming parliamentary election in a free and fair manner, if not entirely then substantially.
Politics of the Samurdhi
On the eve of a general election the government has cut the price of flour by three rupees, raised pensions by 300 and public service salaries by 600. More significant politically is the increase in the Samurdhi allowance — and the machine that distributes it.
Truth of all truths!
With the French Ambassador entering the argument about the President’s educational qualifications, the debate has gone beyond Sri Lanka. An explanation from someone in that position ought to be impartial, Ivan writes, and hers is not.
What signals do appointments give the country?
Harry Jayawardena, a billionaire businessman, a close friend of the Bandaranaike family and the man reported to have met the chief expenses of the presidential campaign, has been appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. What, Ivan asks, does an appointment like that tell the country about itself?