Sunday Times 2
Claims of good governance and the ground reality
Do we have good governance in Sri Lanka? It is professed that Sri Lanka is a democracy. Good or bad governance is then relative to democratic values. However much the State and the Government-controlled media may claim of good democratic governance, and whatever the opposition parties and some free media may say to the contrary, it is the people who should sit in judgement. After all democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Let us free people examine the attributes of good democratic governance alongside the Government’s credentials to back up its claim. The main attributes of a true democracy are: 1. Free and fair elections. 2. Rule of Law. 3. Freedom of opinion and expression. 4. Freedom of worship 5. Freedom from fear. 6. Transparency in governance 7. Economic development and service delivery. 8. Accountability (anti-corruption, efficiency and effectiveness.)
1. Free and fair elections:
Free and fair elections are an essential requirement for democratic governance. We see a colossal misuse of public resources for election campaigning by the Government, negating a fair playing field during elections. The misused public resources going into millions of rupees also include public servants who participate in the election campaign. The Defence Secretary is a public servant and the accounting officer of the ministry. He wields enormous power over the police and armed forces, but is seen brazenly campaigning during the elections. The law enforcement authorities, including the Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption, turn a blind eye, rendering the elections a far cry from being free and fair.
2. Rule of Law:
An independent judiciary able to check governments that usurp constitutional authority is a sine-qua-non for Rule of Law. When citizens have no such recourse, the rule of law does not exist.
An independent police force is another essential requirement for Rule of Law to function properly. Rise in crime is unprecedented. Underworld characters and gambling magnates have become king makers. There is an undeterred in-flow of narcotics and ethanol to the country. Sri Lanka Police have good investigating officers capable of cracking every unsolved case if only allowed to do so. Good investigating officers in the police are familiar with the directive to “reverse the process” which means ‘cover up’.
Coming under an egg attack as police look on during the recent Hambantota incident
Police presence during recent attacks by the BBS on minority religious groups and even on another Buddhist monk who preached religious tolerance, without even raising a voice to prevent such attacks, begs the question as to why the police were present at all. To any discerning eye it is obvious that the police presence was to protect the perpetrators, thereby aiding and abetting these crimes. The same thing applies to police presence when a fact-finding group of opposition members were attacked at Hambantota by thugs led by a government politician while the police looked on.
What we see really is a ‘kept police force’ to carry out the bidding of the government to meet its private ends and instil fear in dissidents. Attacks have been thus carried out on dissidents with impunity with a view to silencing them resulting in public hatred towards the police. I have failed to find a police officer who does not lament that the police are not allowed to perform their duties impartially.
It is seen that the police have drifted far from its purpose. The founding principle of the POLICE, since its inception in 1829 and annunciated by Sir Robert Peel is that “Police are the people and the people are the police”. The concept of community-based policing, by whatever name, has been tried out in Sri Lanka quite successfully in the past. In the late 1950s, IGP Osmund de Silva gave much emphasis to this aspect of policing and Police-Public Relations was on a high level. IGP Stanley Senanayake tried to revive this emphasis but with the 1971 insurrection and constitutional changes that followed, the Police became more and more an instrument of the Government to instil fear in its opponents.
3. Freedom of opinion and expression:
Attacks with impunity on media personnel and media institutions do not speak for freedom of opinion and expression. The Hambantota incident and the attack on a Buddhist monk by the BBS are further examples of the denial of this freedom.
4. Freedom of worship:
Attacks with impunity on places of worship of minority religions, negate freedom of worship. More on this have been stated under 2 and 3 above.
5. Freedom from Fear:
2, 3, and 4 above create a fear psychosis negating the freedom from fear.
6. Transparency:
Denial to Right to Information Legislation is ample evidence of the lack of transparency.
7. Economic development:
Much has been done in the way of building expressways, highways, harbours, airports, cricket stadiums and improving existing roads and beautifying cities, thus creating and connecting economic hubs.
In the meanwhile, cost of living is sky rocketing for the common people while the privileged few are living it high, importing state-of-the-art vehicles, shoes, and whatever they name. It is also noteworthy that whatever is being hurriedly done in the name of economic development also entails relative commissions to the privileged. As for benefits from these developments flowing down to the common people, we have to patiently wait and see. With corruption and waste so manifest, how much will trickle down to the people is a big question. Any just reason as to why the Government sees no urgency to introduce the Right to Information Legislation for which the people are clamouring so much, and which will not cost the people’s money, is incomprehensible.
8. Accountability (anti-corruption, effectiveness and efficiency):
The Government is accountable to the people for good governance.
This government has done extremely well in not giving in to external pressures, however powerful they are, and letting the military wipe out the LTTE terrorist outfit that had become a menace to the whole country.
This does not, however, mean that the Government is entitled to govern instilling fear in its opponents and critics as described in the foregoing accounts. What the Government has done in the way of anti-corruption, its effectiveness and efficiency, can also be judged from the foregoing accounts.
The 17th amendment to the constitution in 2001 contained essential checks and balances to democratic governance. But the 18th amendment in 2010 has made way for an ‘autocratic’ government in every sense of the word.
(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police)