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That was great, simply great. That pretentious oracle in this miracle of Asia has spoken. Of course it might have been far better for the reputation of this nation had the Justice Minister taken a vow of silence.

But then since Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe seems to make a rather heady mix of his two-prong portfolio I suppose it would be presumptuous to expect him to fulfill our earnest wishes. So Rajapakshe while seemingly upright in praising the righteous turn the judiciary he claims has taken he is not averse to bending in two before some saffron-clad monks who publicly outrage the Buddha sasana and vinaya as social media have often brought to public attention in recent years.

If an aside is permitted one might well ponder about the use of language today. It seems that both politicians and priests are prone to resort to language most foul and intemperate.

My immediate concern is not the abuse of the saffron robe (or various shades of it) but Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s somewhat hurried intervention on the report of the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CTF) released the other day.

Justice Minister Rajapakshe announced with magisterial portentousness that he had “no confidence” in the Task Force. I don’t think many people really care whether this Rajapakshe has any confidence in the Task Force which has more eminent persons on it than the Justice Minister is ever likely to emulate despite a double doctorate that somebody told me he had been awarded by somebody or other.

If I remember correctly Mervyn Silva was also awarded a doctorate of sorts by some acupuncturist group. That at least had some relevance since Dr. Mervyn Silva as he would expect people to call him, had a habit of needling people though he did not use acupuncture needles to accomplish some of his odious tasks.

I am not quite sure how Rajapakshe became a double-doctor or who conferred the academic accolades on him. But he would be better served if he was more concerned with his public image as the justice minister and how much confidence the public have in him, never mind his lack of confidence in the Task Force.

I remember the stories on the grapevine a few years back that Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe was not granted a second term as president of the Bar Association as the association was concerned about his stand on the impeachment of the then chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe announced that he had “no confidence” in the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CTF).

Whether this is true or not I do not know but I distinctly remember that there were criticisms about what was considered Rajapakshe’s equivocal stand on the impeachment and rumblings that he seemed to be also supporting the other Rajapaksas. It might be remembered that the then chief justice was shabbily and disgustingly treated by some of those who were prominent loud-mouths in the previous government like Wimal Weerawansa.

If Rajapakshe’s equivocation, as claimed by some at the Bar, was the reason why he was not granted a second term then he must be perhaps the only president of the Bar Association to be denied this whereas others enjoy a second term without a contest.

Surely this rejection of Rajapakshe who was replaced by Upul Jayasuriya should raise eyebrows among those who were not aware of how the legal fraternity of which Rajapakshe is a part, had unprecedentedly sidelined him from serving a second term in the Bar Association’s top post.

In the course of his comments Rajpakshe said that some of the members of the Task Force were representatives of non-government organisations (NGOs). What a non sequitur. For Rajapakshe’s benefit it might be necessary to explain what the Latin words mean. Suffice it to say that there is no logical connection between his two remarks unless he is struggling to say that he has no confidence in the report because there are members of NGOs in the Task Force.

But then the Justice Minister seems to forget that this Task Force was appointed by the Government in which it now serves. It was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who announced the setting up of the CTF which was obviously approved by the cabinet. So he should blame his boss for the appointments he made.

I cannot be sure that Rajapakshe understands the principle of collective responsibility. If he does not he might wish to do another doctoral thesis on it. If he does he might consider resigning from the government since he is fundamentally opposed to the composition of the CTF for having some members of NGOs in it who, if one can follow his logic, he believes influenced the recommendations of the Task Force.

That is not all. Following his observation that no one is today complaining about the independence of the judiciary (how he reached this view remains as vague as his logic) he goes on to say In his comments to our sister paper the Daily Mirror that the Task Force report “at this juncture is totally unwarranted. Therefore (another non sequitur) we don’t have to follow these recommendations by the CTF.”

Now what is “this juncture” he is referring to? What is fundamentally wrong in releasing the report at the time it was released? Surely those who appointed this committee expected it to complete its work and announce its finding and recommendations. The government surely did not instruct the committee not to release it at this time or what Rajapakshe calls “this juncture.” If it did what makes “this juncture” unacceptable and embarrassing to the government?

If one wades through the thickets of Rajapakshe thinking to elicit some meaning, the conclusion should be that the government would follow the recommendations of the CTF had they been announced at a more convenient or propitious time. So what is not acceptable is not the CTF’s call for a foreign judge also to sit on the bench or international investigators to unearth any evidence regarding allegations of human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian laws committed by contending parties in the separatist conflict that ended with the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.

By the way how many of our judges are learned in international humanitarian law and international human rights law? There may be some in the Supreme Court who have some knowledge but are they competent to interpret such laws. There were at one time judges of the highest court who were able to do so such as Mark Fernando (who should really have been chief justice, A.R.B. Amarasinghe and G.P.S. de Silva. Christie Weeramantry, who did not serve long in Sri Lanka, was an internationally recognized jurist.

Do we have today serving judges who can even vaguely match the knowledge and understanding of various strands of international law displayed by the aforementioned judges of a more recent vintage?

It might also be mentioned that much of the jurisprudence, the decisions of special courts and tribunals such as the Rwanda Commission is written and available in English. Even our law reports are in English. How many of our judges in the lower judiciary are really knowledgeable in the English language and can read and understand the interpretation of international laws and decisions made thereon? Do they even read the decisions of international courts and tribunals? It is not their fault. Since the mid-1970s they studied the law in Sinhala or Tamil.

So a whole corpus of interpretations and decisions of international courts, tribunals and commissions on international humanitarian law in particular remain outside the knowledge zone of many of the judges especially in the lower judiciary.

Take the case of investigators. Do we have criminal detectives qualified in investigating allegations such as war crimes or violations of international humanitarian law? Even if we have, would they be permitted to try and dig for evidence that would establish the guilt or innocence of the accused.
Such is the local ethos that several years after the murders of Lasantha Wickrematunge, Wasim Thajudeen, Nadarajah Raviraj, Joseph Pararajasingham and the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda we are still trying to find the perpetrators.

There are many doubts in the public mind about what appears to be foot-dragging with regard to these investigations. The question is who is responsible for the inordinate delays in concluding these investigations and identifying the suspects.

It is said that these investigations are being hampered by politicians and public officials – retired or serving – be they from the police, the armed forces, the Attorney-General’s Department, Judicial Medical Office or persons from other institutions.

So even if Sri Lanka does have competent investigators, the critical question is whether they will be permitted to conduct their investigations professionally and without any interference by politicians in or out of power and by law enforcement bodies and senior officers in the armed forces some of whom are likely to be named in any indictments.

If local investigators are threatened, intimidated and hampered by those who have a direct or indirect interest in any indictments that might be filed then what is the earthly use of saying Sri Lanka has competent judges and investigators when some judges may not be sufficiently versed in aspects of international law and investigators are not permitted to perform their tasks without fear and favour.

Would we have got into this unholy mess if our diplomatic incompetence and lunacy did not lead Sri Lanka to co-sponsor a UNHRC resolution which clearly nailed us to the mast though our pro-American whiz kids in the UNP thought they could slip out of the noose by paying pooja to Washington on knees more bent than Rajapakshe’s before some obnoxious Saffron-robe clad monks whose conduct dishonours the very teachings of the Buddha.

If one were to string Rajapakshe’s faux pas together it would seem like some Monty Pythonesque farce. Apart from his venture into counting how many Sri Lankans had travelled to join ISIS, one might recall that admission he made in parliament in connection with the Avant Garde affair.

Then minister Tilak Marapana honourably resigned after he made some remarks about his one-time client who was head of Avant Garde. But curiously Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe who said that he had advised the Attorney-General not to arrest Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is surely a clear case of political interference in the official duties of a quasi-judicial officer.

The Justice Minister has no power vested in him to give instructions to the AG particularly with regard to an on-going case. The man either does not understand his role or considers himself a kind of demi-god who is endowed with unlimited power and has no place in an administration that preaches good governance.

Any honourable person would have considered resigning when photographs appeared in websites of the Rajapakshes reportedly enjoying the hospitality of Avant Garde’s Senadipathi somewhere in the US. The photographs appeared at a time when the Avant Garde matter was making news headlines.

Did he resign? Not on your sweet life, he did not. When politicians do terrible things and suffer no consequences, people lose trust in both politics and justice.