Columns

Poor Hon. Mr Ali Sabry, Minister of Justice, Attorney-at-Law and President’s Counsel. What other hidden assets he has not declared, the modest man that he is said to be, I do not know. At least he did, with much reluctance one would venture to surmise, admit that he has been 25 years at the Bar.

Justice Minister Ali Sabry

I might admit as well that I know of prominent persons who have spent more years at the bar and never left the place until the doors closed at midnight. That, however, is another story.

But just because Minister Sabry is an honourable man — they are all honourable men as Shakespeare said centuries ago, I suppose in anticipation of an onrush of honourable and honest persons to political office and judicial prominence — why must this minister take stick?

If it is true and not the kind of fake news that is labelled as Trumpism, the Hon. Minister has admitted to a major sacrifice apparently on behalf of the nation. What “a big sacrifice on our part” he reportedly said referring the Government’s decision to move the Justice Ministry and its excess intellectual and legal baggage from Hulftsdorp Hill to the World Trade Centre for a brief two years, which is a steep climb as I remember.

It might be just for two years but it is quite a burden to bear, all of four hundred million rupees.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the government but with the people, Diana Gomes MP would have declared resorting to her Shakespearean punditry had she but had the chance.

I mean you cannot fault a politician’s logic however long you might have sat at the feet of your logic professor, in my case a formidable but kind lady. One might file a fundamental rights application but much good that will do if you cannot get past the first legal gatekeeper. Ask a few who have tried, including the best of our legal stars dressed in the most expensive black vicuna jacket if they could afford one. But then at the current fees charged by president’s counsel some surely could.

When you pick a dozen or more legal luminaries who would have been crowned QCs had we not dumped the Queen, crown and country, and elevated them from their current station, you must perforce provide them with elevators. The faster they travel the better, for justice delayed is justice denied, some ass has said.

What sacrifices are made on behalf of the people only those who govern, spending their energies night and day, turning byways into highways and leaving their footprints in the sea sands of time will understand the troubles our representatives take.

But had all our retired and retiring thinkers in various intellectual modes and endowed with Socratic wisdom, and others being kicked willy-nilly from here to there and elsewhere thought of a more judicious explanation for the shift, lawmakers inside parliament and law breakers outside it, would not squabble over a mere 400 million rupees dedicated to modernise our justice system which our citizens have clamoured for over the years.

At a time when critics say the Government is peering into the bottom of its financial bin and Cabraal brawls — verbally that is — over which administration borrowed more and splashed even more, swelling the contents of the national  ‘ping katey’ and driving Minister Bandula Gunawardena to rework Keynesian economics, it is hardly patriotic to call our nation a failed state.

The other day in parliament, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena threatened to chop off a couple of words from opposition leader Sajith Premadasa’s speech for supposedly calling Sri Lanka a “failed state” amid protestations from Premadasa that he never said so.

If that is unparliamentary and should be excised from the legislature’s holy book for bringing our serendipitous isle into disrepute as the Hon Speaker maintained via some vacuous reasoning, then that sanctum sanctorum of which he is Grand Master, would need to be closed for major reforms to free speech and linguistic modernisation.

Meanwhile, perhaps the Speaker should set his parliamentary minions the task of perusing the Hansard over the last two decades. It might enlighten those who need enlightenment whether during this period the ‘offending’ phrase had never been used unlike in other democratic countries in the world where its usage is common legion and does not face the slings and arrows of outraged Speakers ready to expunge every extra diphthong as an offence to our ancient heritage and a borrowed language.

Now that we have a ministry guarding our heritage except perhaps our ancient rain forests of eternal value would it not be better to dig deep into the parliamentary proceedings of the last decade at least to uncover the conduct of our lawmakers and the language they employed in and out of the echo chamber.

Without quarrelling like Twiddledee and Twiddledum it would surely be more beneficial to the new generations and the country some seem so concerned about, if our peoples’ representatives undertake to adhere to the MPs’ code of conduct they swore to abide by and some still need to.

Today with a new parliament elected there are many MPs who have failed to take that parliamentary oath of allegiance. Without wasting time trying to fathom the meaning of the two-word phrase would it not be more meaningful for parliament to administer this oath before it takes longer than Minister Sabry’s hall of fame? That judicial exercise might even return to Hulftsdorp having made his “big sacrifice” and got the wheels of justice turning and turning exceedingly smoothly and, more importantly, cleanly with a code of judicial conduct tucked into judicial wigs.

I remember some years back the Chinese built (they build all things all over — some work, some don’t, so some say) a Courts Complex in Hulftsdorp. But then that “Hall of Justice” was not meant to hear Chinese-like justice dispensed as in Hong Kong today in violation of bilateral treaties. We were assured of the rule of law.

As some concerned people wondered the other day, will these “holes of justice” also be in China’s hands or will more millions flow out of the Treasury’s seemingly inexhaustible coffers?

Meanwhile, perhaps the Speaker should set his parliamentary minions the task of perusing the Hansard over the last two decades. It might then emerge whether during this decade or two the ‘offending’ phrase had never been used while around the world it had become common usage and entered the parliamentary lexicons of many democratic states.

One week has passed since the Speaker said he would have opposition leader Premadasa’s speech studied to see whether the phrase “failed state” had been used by more knowledgeable legislators. If they were indeed used the words would be expunged. If not the words used would remain, it implied.

I have been looking forward to the Speaker’s ruling. So far I’ve seen none. Either the Speaker is still mulling over the legitimacy of the usage of the phrase or his parliamentary staff needs days to track this down unlike others chasing the coronavirus.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran
Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism.)