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Wild west style media lynching of police officers must be curbed
View(s):When Ranjan Ramanayake was arrested for not having his official revolver licence renewed none would have imagined what would follow. According to media reports over 120,000 recordings of telephone conversations that the Parliamentarian had with various individuals were also taken into custody. 
Hardly 24 hours of the arrest had passed when selected recordings of the conversations of the actor turned politician came into the public domain. These were released at media conferences by lawyers, members of various organisations and members of the clergy. None of them explained how these tapes came into their possession when all these tapes should have been in Police custody or as productions in Court.
It is also a mystery as to how within the space of 24 hours recordings having a single theme – interference with the judiciary and interference with police investigations – were picked out from over 120,000 recordings taken into custody by the Police from the Parliamentarian’s residence and then released to the public. Clearly there is more to this than meets the eye.
As a result of the selective release of these recordings into the public domain a concerted campaign has been launched to portray the entire administration of justice as being tainted. No one is being spared in what seems a well planned attempt to paint the judicial process as being manipulated.
The casualties in this process are many. The first and most important is the judiciary. So far there are three judges whose names have transpired in the recordings and the Judicial Services Commission has quickly moved in the matter to initiate an inquiry. However irrespective of the outcome of the inquiry, the conduct of three judges cannot be used to tarnish the image of the entire judiciary.
As the President of the Bar Association (BASL) Kalinga Indatissa in a statement released to the media has stated individual incidents cannot be used to attack the entire Judiciary. He has also stressed that “ immediate attention in this regard is extremely important so that the Judicial Officers who are truly independent and who have exercised their duty fearlessly and without any kind of influence are protected.”
It is also very clear from the tone and tenor of the criticisms against the judiciary that it is a campaign designed to reopen cases which have gone through the whole process of trial and judicial review as well as to subvert ongoing investigations and court proceedings by discrediting the entire judiciary.
Another casualty of this unrelenting campaign are members of the Bar who are being criticised for appearing for particular clients and implying motives other than their professional duties for their appearance on behalf of their clients. The BASL President has in his statement also cautioned members of the legal profession to avoid making public statements relating to pending or concluded cases or individual judges.
This is an appeal that the BASL has made previously too without effect. The BASL may have to think of more stringent action against offenders in the larger interest of their members as well as the independence of the judiciary.
Even the Attorney General’s Department has not been spared of such irresponsible conduct of some lawyers. After the order made by the Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne in the bail application made by the former Minister Rajitha Senaratne, Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Pieris was publicly criticised over the media and motives attributed for his conduct of the case.
The wild west style metaphorical lynching not only of the judges but also lawyers and investigating officers by a group of individuals including members of the clergy will have the effect of intimidating the judiciary, lawyers and investigating officers from fearlessly doing their duty.
Former Director CID Shani Abeysekera whom Retired Senior DIG Gamini Gunawardene in an article published in the Island newspaper of December 6, 2019 described as a tenacious investigator who has several successful difficult criminal investigations to his credit, has been bad mouthed for his conversations caught on tape with Ranjan Ramanayake. While it is left to Shani Abeysekera to explain how and why he had these conversations with Ranjan Ramanayake, none of the conversations in the public domain seem to suggest that he did anything improper during his investigations.
The usual practice when there are allegations of wrongdoing by investigators is to challenge them within the four walls of the court during court proceedings and leave the sitting judge to pronounce on such allegations.
However in the current situation Shani Abeysekera is being defamed publicly and continuously at media conferences. As a public officer he is barred from holding press conferences and giving statements to the media and is being subjected to a media trial without his side of the story being told.
It must be noted that he has earned the ire of powerful persons who were being investigated long before Ranjan Ramanayake’s tapes had surfaced and had been publicly been warned during the year 2019 at media conferences that he would be dealt with in the event of a change of Government.
Ranjan Ramanayake’s tapes were a God send to create a media hype against the sleuth. In fact soon after the present Government came to power he was effectively demoted and transferred as a personal assistant to the DIG Sourthern Province on the initiative of the acting IGP. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the acting IGP who had no reason to fault Shani Abeysekera’s investigations prior to the change of Government was pressurised to act against the former CID Director by a political hand.
The whole campaign of “naming and shaming” public officers, lawyers and judges will have a chilling effect on the police and judiciary and is intended to prevent them from exercising their Constitutionally given power and duty to act independently. But despite the ups and downs in the country’s journey after independence the judiciary, the police, public service have had the courage to act with professional independence amidst daunting odds which has helped to maintain Sri Lanka’s image as a functioning democracy. There is no reason to doubt that they would act differently despite the difficult times.
A worrying feature of the current situation is that the Opposition and Civil Society have not spoken up against this witch hunt against the judiciary and the public service. Such a silence will only weaken the resolve of those who are inclined to do their duty fearlessly and independently because there is no one to defend them against the baying of wolves.
(javidyusuf@gmail.com)