සරත් සිල්වා රගපාමින් සිටින්නේ ද ලෙනින් රත්නායක රග පෑ භූමිකාව ම ය
Ivan retells how magistrate Lenin Ratnayake, dismissed earlier from the Insurance Corporation for fraud, hid his past behind a pious image, won support from monks, lawyers, local councils and Attorney General Sarath N. Silva, and was finally found guilty by the Hector Yapa inquiry. He argues that Chief Justice Silva is staging the same performance through bodhi pujas, Bar resolutions and a Malwatte statement, and sets out allegations about Silva’s private life, misuse of power in related litigation and a loan he never repaid.
රාවයට කරන ලද අනතුරු ඇගවීමක්ද
After a smoke bomb attack on Ravaya, the Media Minister condemned it and ordered an inquiry. The piece reads the attack as a warning linked to state media’s anti-Ravaya campaign and to government circles that see the paper as leading efforts to topple it, and recalls the attacks on Lasantha Wickrematunge and the murders of Rohana Kumara and Nimalarajan, after which similar promises produced nothing.
නීතීඥ සංගමයට ප්‍රශ්න 6ක්
After lawyers Neil Dias, Chandrapala Kumarage and Sena Liyanasuriya urged the Bar Association to act against Ravaya, Ivan recounts how inquiries upheld Ravaya’s charges against Lenin Ratnayake and Upali Abeyratne and poses six questions: on Sarath N. Silva’s domestic life and judicial ethics, his appointment while disbarment petitions were pending, Abeyratne’s promotion, the trust land obtained while on the Vijaya Kumaratunga commission, his continuing trusteeship, and his ties to Rohana Kumara, a suspect in the Wijekoon murder.
අර්බුදය ගැන ආපසු හැරි බැලිමක්
Answering a reader who asks why Ravaya keeps writing about Sarath N. Silva, Ivan retells how his suspicions began with the Lenin Ratnayake affair: the rape allegation reported in 1997, police findings that Ratnayake had been dismissed from the Insurance Corporation for fraud, and a confidential 1998 report in which Silva as Attorney General shielded him. He describes the Bar’s past presidents’ resolution, the inquiries that found Ratnayake and Upali Abeyratne guilty, his own disbarment petition, and Silva’s appointment as Chief Justice, and calls for his removal.
ජනමාධ්‍ය නිදහසට එරෙහිව සාපරාධී අපහාස නීතිය
Although its first media minister Dharmasiri Senanayake called the People’s Alliance a government brought to power by journalists, it has reformed only parliamentary privilege law and, instead of repealing criminal defamation, filed twelve cases against editors, six of them against Ravaya. Sinha Ratnatunga and Lasantha Wickrematunge were convicted of defaming the President, who never testified. The editorial contrasts English practice and the Salman Rushdie episode, cites New York Times v. Sullivan, and notes that the 1996 recommendations of the R.K.W. Goonesekere committee were ignored.
කමල් අද්දරආරච්චි, රාවය හා කාන්තා ඉරණම
Ivan recounts Ravaya’s campaign after a magistrate who knew actor Kamal Addararachchi discharged him of raping a schoolgirl; the magistrate left for Australia and Kamal was indicted and sentenced by Shiranee Tilakawardane to ten years. The Court of Appeal has now acquitted him while calling his conduct ungentlemanly. Ivan argues that poor young women rarely get justice, citing a girl abused by a former police chief, a child-sex racket at a Beruwala children’s home that led to a defamation case against Ravaya, and Lenin Ratnayake, sent on paid leave.
පොන්නම්බලම් ඝාතනයේ ඇත්ත යටපත් වීමට ඉඩ නොතැබිය යුතුය
The editorial recalls that Ravaya named the criminal ‘Moratuwa Saman’, arrested on 6 April, as Kumar Ponnambalam’s killer and linked a reserve police constable holding the victim’s phone. Senior police officer Bandula Wickramasinghe first blamed the LTTE and now says the constable ordered the killing, apparently to close the case. It demands that police identify the political hand behind the murder and the Rohana Kumara killing.
සම්මානය සහ අධිකරණයේ අර්බුදය
Ravaya received the Editors’ Guild’s Sepala Gunasena award for defending judicial independence. Ivan recounts the background: his and W.A.B. Jayasekera’s petitions to disbar Attorney General Sarath N. Silva, Ravaya’s exposure of magistrate Lenin Ratnayake and district judge Upali Abeyratne, the Bar Association’s call for inquiries that found both guilty, the lenient penalties, and the protests by lawyers and MPs before Silva was made Chief Justice in September 1999.
රාවයට වැරදුණේද? ආපසු හැරි බැලීමක්
Ivan defends Ravaya’s critical stance before the presidential election. He explains that the paper promoted Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1992–94 for her reform programme, which she never implemented, and rejects her claim to have ended the fear of death and granted media freedom, recalling how Ravaya defied J.R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa, including publishing the 1988 election petition verdict in advance. He lists corrupted polls under her rule and maintains her win was not a clean mandate.
රාජ්‍ය මාධ්‍යයේ ඉහඳ පණුවෝ
Written in Ivan’s own voice, the piece answers the sustained attacks on him and Ravaya by state media and government-funded ‘jungle papers’. He describes how Bennet Rupasinghe and Sujeewa Dissanayake won editorships at Dinamina and Silumina by serving their political master, the minister’s contemptuous nicknames for them, and a former regional correspondent now heading the smear unit. He says he lives on his Ravaya salary and declined posts the government offered.