Columns

Meeting a rising tide of strange bedfellows (ie; monks, lawyers, democracy activists, nationalists) protesting against the highly charged Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill tabled in Parliament with just a few days to challenge in the Supreme Court, we hear shrill (state) Ministerial wailing to the effect that the Colombo Port City is a ‘turning point’ for Sri Lanka.

Lavish confidence reposed in majoritarianism

Apparently this is the one thing, we are told, that will usher in a land of milk and honey, for the stupendously devalued Sri Lanka rupee to recover its lustre and for the miserably beaten down Podi Singho of this land to suddenly become prosperous. This claim is, of course, hilarious but one cannot blame politicians for the outrageous lies they weave. After all, the enormous power of a two-thirds majority in Parliament was conferred by an entirely gullible populace on current rulers based on those very same diabolical lies , despite warnings of dire consequences that would follow.

Now, the lavish confidence reposed in majoritarianism and ethnic dominance, (‘our Sinhala Buddhist leader’, our ‘Sinhala Buddhist nation’) has turned full circle. In a generally sleepy Avurudu week, there is dark humor in the spectacle of a monk and a party-hopping parliamentarian, (who once held the ministerial portfolio of Justice no less) complaining in outrage that they had got ‘abused’ by President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for saying that the Port City would result in a ‘Chinese colony’ in the country. Another monk complains bitterly that the Bill was tabled during the holidays so as to stop legal challenges.

As he says, the ‘20^th Amendment to the Constitution had lessened the period within which a Bill can be challenged, to one week and we had just one day to file a legal challenge.’ Pray, did not these angrily spluttering complainants know the exact nature of the state beast that they had, with full intent and knowledge aforethought, unleashed upon the Sri Lankan people? What we had were twin evils, a juggernaut majority in the House held aloft on the wings of Sinhala supremacy and the elevation of the Presidency above the law (albeit a nod to limited presidential immunity) through the 20^th Amendment?

Devious politicians rallying around racist calls

Are they infants not to realise the dangers therein of which they now complain with fury to a media which, incidentally, does not have the basic competence to call them out for their hypocrisy? Indeed, what has this so-called ‘Sinhala supremacy’ got for the Sinhala people, except for devious politicians to use as a ralllying call for votes every time an election comes around? Each crisis that grips us is deadlier than the last, on top of massive economic devastation caused by the global pandemic we have the raping of virgin forest land and the agony of contaminated oils, spices and poisoned rice foisted on Sri Lankans by multinationals and corrupt businessmen hand in glove with ruling party politicians.

Instead of legitimate inquiry and the law being moved against suspects, there is denial and threats issued against those who expose the rackets. And even here, majoritarianism is paramount. So when a group of monks and a twittering Podujana party lawyer flocked to the offices of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) to lodge complaints against contaminated food products in the market and were kept waiting for several hours before being allowed in, a woman who was part of that group was heard to grumble loudly in front of television cameras, ‘we are Sinhala Buddhists and we were stranded outside, why are we being treated like this?’

This is the sum total of the sickness that has come upon the nation. Is it any wonder therefore that fraught events of the past one and a half years under this Presidency have defied predictions of even the most doleful pessimists? From a defined question of state accountability for abuses during conflict, we have progressed to a full blown crisis of the Rule of Law. Undoubtedly, this will aid and abet the push for international scrutiny of Sri Lanka which indeed forms the plank of Resolution 46/1 which was approved by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recently.

Directly  contrary to the separation of powers

But even with this clear warning to put one’s house in order, there is no end, it seems to this gift that keeps giving, with glee as it were, almost if to cock  the proverbial finger at the world. Thus, along with the fracas over the Port City Commission Bill, it is reported that the Prime Minister will move to present a Resolution in Parliament with intent to ‘implement’ the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry probing Incidents of Political Victimisation during the previous regime.

This is a truly startling proposal which flies directly in the face of the constitutional separation of powers. First, the Report of this Commission and the recommendations therein which severely impact on ongoing cases of  corruption, emblematic human rights violations including the abduction and killing of children for ransom has already been challenged in the appellate courts by those directly affected by its findings. Those challenges are ongoing. Secondly, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (established under Law No 7 of 1978) has been appointed to look into those very same recommendations.

This, by itself, is highly problematic given that this body has powers over and above ordinary fact finding Commissions, including the authority to recommend the imposition of civic disabilities. Thirdly, the Attorney General is empowered by law, indeed, the very Act (Act, No 48 of 1978 as amended) under which that Commission of Inquiry was established, to take action, to inquire further into the cases so highlighted. In that context, a Resolution tabled in Parliament by those who directly stand to benefit from the implementation of the Commission’s findings, including members of the Rajapaksa family along with other Ministers who are the subject of judicial inquiry is an affront to the very idea of the Rule of Law.

The Government has yet to perform on its primary task

In fact, this goes one step further than what the JR Jayawardene Presidency, also with an overwhelming two thirds majority did in 1978, when the House ‘nullified’ a decision of the Court of Appeal which had ruled against the vesting of retrospective powers in a Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry to look into the imposition of civic disabilities of late Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike. This is ugly constitutional history being reenacted with a vengeance. Moreover, it is reported almost unbelievably that prosecutors and judicial officers involved in the cases ‘investigated’ by this Commission of Inquiry, a farcical exercise if there ever was one, would also be proceeded against. If so, we might  as well call for courts of law to cease functioning in this country.

So the turning point for Sri Lanka is not the miracle of the Colombo Port City as politicians would want us to believe. Rather it is the loss of fragile democratic credentials that has left the people piteously vulnerable. When the country is thrust into treacherous cross currents of big-power rivalries with no lifelines at hand, It will matter less and less as to who is Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim. This Government has yet to perform the primary task for which it was elected, namely to safeguard the integrity of the nation state.  Protecting national security is not locking up the Mayor of Jaffna because he designed blue uniforms to be worn by his staff. This is the stuff of bad satire not the defence of the nation.

So far, it has failed and disastrously so at that duty.