Accountability and good governance inseparable, says Chief Justice
Accountability and good governance are like inseparable twins similar to heart and health, according to Chief Justice K. Sripavan.
Inaugurating the Sri Lanka legal summit in Colombo on Wednesday, he said that the integrity and independence of the judiciary, police, the armed forces and the public service was an important reflection of the governance that exist in a country.
“Good governance lies not only with the government but with other institutionSSs as well. The way forward to a country was to create economic and social justice. Freedom of expression and association and social justice was important and every individual should be treated alike before the law,” he told an eminent audience of lawyers, policymakers, economists, civil rights activists and other stakeholders.
Noting that this is the first conference he is addressing since assuming office as chief justice, Mr. Sripavan said members of the legal profession have made a significant contribution to the public life of the country by organising conference of this nature. “The bar was committed in contributing its tradition of serving the public interest. As all of you are aware that freedom of expression was fundamental to the practising of the law,” he said noting that the theme of the conference like governance, regulation and investment was appropriate at this time as it promotes accountability and good governance to developing nations like Sri Lanka.
Audience. Pic by Amila Gamage
Bar Association President Upul Jayasuriya, speaking at the ceremony, said, “We are able to see the reality of our dreams not only in the areas of the bench and the bar but in governance and in the corporate sector as well”.
He said that he was made to understand the draft Constitutional amendments were ready and will be presented to the parliament shortly. Referring to the appointment of judges to the apex court in the new constitution, a committee will be set up chaired by the Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General and the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to approve the names of judges to the apex court.
“The Bar Association had taken up many issues in the past and has come a long way. We never thought the issues we took up would realise with satisfaction to the bar, the bench and to the civil society in a short period of time under my leadership. ”
Chief Justice
He said that his term has come to an end and would relinquish duties soon. As far as the investment climate was concerned there should be an independent judiciary and independent judges and the rule of law has to be respected, Mr. Jayasuriya said.
He said there should be transparency where investments was concerned and should not be back door deals .
The keynote address was delivered by the former Director Economic Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy who said the conference came at a time when the country charts a new path of good governance.
As Sri Lanka was located closely to India and with a good relationship with China this was the best time to develop the economy after 50 years as there were no drags on the economy as in the past, he said.
He noted that to make advantage of the situation fundamental changes in the economy are required. The welfare measures undertaken by the government during the past 50-60 years have to be restructured as it was not affordable and did not benefit the country. There have been deficits in budgets since 1977 as there was higher recurrent expenditure than revenue.
“We have been borrowing for recurrent expenditure since 1977. But were we able to get away with it? We got away because donors came to our rescue because of our liberal economic policies. We have continued to live beyond our means,” he added.
Dr. Coomaraswamy said things are different today as the country has graduated from a low income country to a middle income country and was no longer eligible for foreign aid.
“We had to now seek commercial borrowings from countries with higher interest rates. International capital markets are far more brutal than other international institutions that we dealt with in the past,” he said.