Serious flaws tie the wings of the aviation authority

By Leon Berenger

A serious flaw by the aviation authorities has put the BIA at high risk after it continues to allow aircraft that have failed to meet the safety requirements to land on the tarmac thereby comprising the safety of other planes landing and leaving the runway, according to reliable sources in the aviation industry.

They said the biggest threat were the Ukraine-built Antonovs which are being operated by private companies and piloted by Russian crew.

"These are aircraft that have never undergone the required inspection by the operation division who are responsible for such checks, upto the time of the crash at Kadirana late last month. The operation division is responsible to carry out periodical inspections of operators to detect and rectify any wrong doings", they said.

"In addition, Russian pilots working for these airlines are compelled to work nearly 200 hours a month since the operators will do all the above to enhance and maximize their profits.

It is the duty of the Department of Civil Aviation as the regulating Authority of the Aviation Industry to monitor all operators to ensure that the safety standards stipulated by the International Body are maintained at all times".

Furthermore, the operations department which must be headed by a pilot, instead is headed by a person having no flying experience and is incapable of carrying out any aircraft inspections, the sources added.

Meanwhile, while all this is happening there is also a foreign expert from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) employed by the department with a monthly salary of over $ 10,000.

'This expert who has been in service for the past two years has nonetheless concentrated his inspections only on the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines, and continues to ignore the rest for reasons apparently known only to him, the sources explained.

'Now SriLankan Airlines has begun to complain that they are being over inspected and harassed to create more foreign inspection trips so that this expert could also be on board.

'The ICAO which assessed the safety functions of the department some time back discovered glaring shortcomings and enforced a programme to reorganise the department threatening to stop international flights originating from Colombo. The project cost over Rs. 180 million to the government and also had three experts sent by the ICAO.

'Among the ICAO men was a Sri Lankan who had migrated to Canada. He was parachuted to the position by local administrators replacing the more experienced and qualified person selected earlier.

'This so-called expert had even obtained a bogus Aircraft Engineers License while he was in the country and this license was cancelled by the then authority after detection.

'Another issue that is affecting the industry is that there are no pilots at present employed by the department. When the last of them went into retirement they were replaced with officials from the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) even though there are large number of retired pilots who would like to return. Some of them had even offered their services free but this was put down by the administration who apparently do not like to see aviators in due positions.

Aviation circles are of the view that unless an aviator takes over the hot seat at the department as in other countries, no genuine progress will be made to the local aviation industry in this country", the sources further said.

Controversial bills to be presented again

By Dilrukshi Handunnetti

The controversial Postal Corporation Bill shelved amidst much opposition will be taken up for debate when Parliament meets on May 9 but postal unions have described the exercise as a move to prune down workers.

The original bill which was presented in February last year was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court when the unions challenged it.

The Bill also sparked off a controversy which culminated in the replacement of Postal Chief Soma Kotakadeniya and the bill itself being postponed.

Ministry sources said the government was determined to present the Bill in a new format, incorporating the ruling of the Supreme Court which recommended that at least fifteen clauses in the bill needed amendements.

Meanwhile, confident of receiving a two thirds majority in Parliament, the government was poised to present the anti-defection laws by June, PA General Secretary D.M. Jayaratne told The Sunday Times.

He said only some modalities had to be discussed and with a strong group of UNPers pledging support, carrying the legislation would face no difficulties.

PA sources said several UNPers who were unhappy with the present party leadership and were fearing they would not receive nomination, had offered support if there could be a secret vote on the anti-defection laws.

The anti-defection laws popularly known as the crossover bill had to be shelved early this year when the UNP decided to enter into a dialogue with the ruling PA thereby reducing the significance of the entire purpose of presenting the crucial bill.

The bill is to be presented as an urgent bill with several amendments being accommodated in accordance with the wishes of certain minority political parties which earlier opposed it as an attempt to reduce their strength.

NIE seeks to clean up school admission malpractices

The National Institute of Education (NIE) will begin accepting submissions from political parties from tomorrow in a bid to formulate a policy that would minimise corrupt practices in school admissions, NIE Chairman Tissa Jayatillake said.

The views were being sought as part of a programme to know public views about school admissions on a directive issued by President Chandrika Kum-aratunga.

Prof. Jayatillake told The Sunday Times all political parties represented in Parliament had been invited to make submissions before a commission.

He said the commission had been told to submit a report based on its findings and the procedures were likely to be put into action before next year's school admissions.

He said they hoped to analyse the views of religious organisations, parents, teachers, past pupil associations and other interest groups in finalising the recommendations.

Prof. Jayatillake said the main purpose of this exercise was to minimise corruption in school admissions.

No confidence motion on Colombo mayor coming

By Laila Nasry

The Colombo Municipal Council is racked in controversy over a no confidence motion that is soon to be moved against Colombo Mayor Omar Kamil.

A power hungry struggle seems to be developing, with the main people behind the motion being allegedly those seeking top slots in the council.

Mayor Omar Kamil told 'The Sunday Times' that he is confident of overcoming this no-confidence motion reported to be coming up.

'The Sunday Times' reliably learns that the motion is to be officially brought forward by the council members in the opposition, but is backed by a UNP Municipal Councillor along with a few members of the party.

One of the UNP members allegedly backing the no-confidence motion reportedly entered the record room of the municipality after office hours and removed around 150 photocopies of records.

The UNP is conducting a separate investigation about the allegation against him.

Mr Ariyaratne Santiago, another Council member confirmed the reports of the no-confidence motion saying "it is being being brought up by the opposition members in the council and is backed by some of the UNP members as well.

Although Mr. Santiago was unable to state how many members were backing the no confidence motion he did state that it took the signatures of just three council members to bring up a motion such as this.

Meanwhile moves are also underway by a group supporting the Mayor to present a'confidence motion' in support of Mr. Kamil.

Govt. to break stranglehold on services to the North

By Chris Kamalendran

The Government has decided to break the monopoly in shipment of food supplies, building materials and passenger ship services to the North, following complaints that certain influential sections were controlling the business resulting in civilians being forced to pay high prices.

The newly appointed Minister for Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Development of the North Dr. Sarath Amunugama told 'The Sunday Times' that the government will be calling for tenders shortly to send supplies to the Jaffna peninsula and for a passenger service.

He said that a team of officials have been appointed from his ministry to study the situation about supply of essential items to the north and accordingly he would be taking further steps to ease the burdens on civilians.

'Our ministry will be acting on humanitarian grounds to bring relief to the civilians.', he said.

'The Sunday Times' last week exposed details about the monopoly in the shipment of potatoes, cement and arrack held by certain businessmen with the help of some government officials.

Dr. Amuugama said that they will ensure that more supplies are sent to the north at reduced prices, but at the same time would see that the local farmers are well protected.

He said they had identified five districts, in both cleared and uncleared areas. In the uncleared areas they will be seeking the help of the NGOs and Government Agents to develop the area.

He said they have plans to ship excess produce from Jaffna, including vegetables and bring them to Dambulla via Trincomalee.

He said they also have plans to start a ship service between Trinco and KKS to carry passengers. He said 600 passengers could be carried on a trip and the service will operate daily.

'This will help to ease the situation of passengers who travel between Jaffna and the south', he said.

He said the price of a ticket will be about Rs. 3850 for an up and down trip.

Dr. Amunugama said that as part of the plans to ease the burden of the civilians was a proposal to open a one-stop shop in Jaffna where NGOs can purchase all their requirements for their activities. He said a shopping complex will also be opened in Jaffna.

'We also want to resettle the displaced persons who are living in state maintained welfare centres', Dr. Amunugama said.

He said that there were about 30,000 displaced persons living in welfare centres.

Liz tells how Bostock died

Excessive bleeding and damage to internal organs caused by a fall from a height resulted in the tragic death of John Keells pioneer Mark Crestel Bostock.

Mr. Bostock who died on the National New Year day was reported to have fallen from the balcony of his holiday resort in Chilaw, the inquest was told.

His wife Elizabeth testifying at the inquest said her husband had been seated on a cane chair and sipping brandy while she was in a room. Around 10 p.m. she heard a noise and rushed to the balcony to find that her husband had fallen with the chair, eight feet down on to a stone in the garden.

Bleeding from his head he was rushed to the Chilaw hospital with the assistance of the household staff. But was pronounced dead on admission.

Mr. Bostock had moved to the top in the business world building the John Keells group into the giant it is today. He was also an outstanding sportsman, playing rugby and hockey at national level.

Dadayama: Court upholds right to protect sources

In a landmark judgment relating to media freedom, the Court of Appeal has strongly upheld the right of a journalist and film director to protect sources of information.

The order was given in favour of film director Vasantha Obeysekera who had appealed against a District Court order banning his film "Dadayama" on the basis he had copied it from a book written by a former Supreme Court Judge A.C. Alles.

The Court of Appeal Bench comprising Justices C.V. Wigneswaran and D. Jayawickrama said the copyright law applied only to original works and they saw little originality in the book by Mr. Alles relating to the sensational 1959 murder of Adeline Vitharane in Wilpattu.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the argument of former Supreme Court Judge claiming private copyright, over facts he had collected in the case when he was the State Prosecutor. The Court said all the evidence collected in this case was public property and it was illegal for the former Supreme Court Judge to claim private copyright over those facts which he had collected and narrated in his book.

During the case in the District Court of Mt. Lavinia and in the Court of Appeal Mr. Alles had insisted that Mr. Obeysekera got all the film material from the book. He said that if Mr. Obeysekera got information from other sources, those should be disclosed.

But the Court of Appeal said that forcing Mr. Obeysekera to disclose his sources of information would violate a basic principle of media freedom and mass communication.

In a 38-page judgment the Court said: Counsel for Mr. Obeysekera submitted that Mr. Alles had no copyright to facts which had occurred since such facts were not his creations.

Though based on the facts of the Wilpattu Murder Case the story of the film and its presentation were different.

The reproduction of that which by itself had no originality would not be protected by copyright. Mr. Alles cannot state that his books remained the only source of the incidence of the murder case.

The purpose of the Copyright Act seems to be to protect the interests of a person who uses his expertise to create a work and to ensure creation of new work which would be useful for humanity in general. If any other person makes any work in consonance with the conditions of "the Act" such person alone should be entitled to do any act in relation to such protected work such as reproduction, translation, adaptation, arrangement or other transformation of the work and communication and publication.

Our law in its wisdom has not sanctioned any and every literary, artistic and /or scientific work to be declared as protected work. Such literary, artistic and scientific works must be original.

If a person were to copy down in his own handwriting at much inconvenience and great labour any one of the Shakespearean plays, photocopies it, publishes it and calls himself the author of such literary work, such work would not be considered as a protected literary work, the reason being that such literary work is not "original" as far as the alleged author is concerned. It is merely a literary work which has already existed.

To obtain the protection of the Act a work must be such that it had been created by the author at his own initiative. In other words an author is a person who makes or creates a work by his own initiative.

Section 9 refers to works to which protection is not granted by the law such as laws and decisions of Courts and administrative bodies and news of the day published, broadcast or publicly communicated. Decisions of Courts are also the laborious outcome of the research and effort on the part of Judges. But they are not protected.

The underlying reason for this is that they should be made public for the benefit of people in general. What transpires in the course of official acts in Parliament, in Courts or administrative bodies even if zealously guarded, making them unavailable to the outside world, still would not attract protection.

The granting of a copyright therefore is in the nature of a privilege granted by law to certain types of creative works. Its primary purpose is to foster originality in literary, artistic and scientific productions and to afford legal protection to the author. The goal of the provisions pertaining to copyright seems to be to encourage creation of and facilitate public access to works of intellectual interest to society.

When an author releases a literary or artistic or scientific work he exposes his personality and reputation to public perusal. Such author in turn desires legal protection not only for his work's economic value but also for the value of his literary, artistic or scientific reputation expressed within his work. That protection is granted , provided the work is original. The originality required relates to expression of thought. Our Act does not seem to require that the expression must be in original or novel form but that the work must not be copied from another work. That means, that it shall originate from the author.

Referring to sources of information the court said: "assertion of Mr. Alles could only have been based on an assumption that either contemporaneously or even later, but before "Dadayama" was filmed, there were no other documentary record of the murder case. Thus anyone desiring to acquaint himself of the murder case had only one source to go to and that was none other than his books. "

"If the Adeline Vitharane murder case took place in the 19th century, the Police and Court records and a few English news- papers being the only source material, may be research works which resurrected the case from the limbo of the forgotten (on showing that all available contemporaneous newspaper reportage, if any, of the murder case were very brief and skimpy and could not have served as source material) might have qualified itself to protection under the law.

"But the Adeline Vitharane murder case took place during our lifetime. The characters, events and their sequences were recent and historically true. The characters existed. The events did occur. And the sequence of the events were well known. They were not the outcome of the creative mind of Mr. Alles The murder case received wide publicity and evoked tremendous public interest and deep sympathy for the victim.

"Therefore when someone refers to the Adeline Vitharane Murder Case or Wilpattu Murder Case he or she does not refer to Mr. Alles' books but to the actual murder case and the actual incidents which happened during our lifetime. What was said by witnesses and accepted by Courts had found general acceptance among people as what happened and had been talked about.

"Therefore it was but natural that the books which referred to the murder case and the film" Dadayama" which was admittedly based on the murder case, must have referred to the same characters, events, sequences and situations. We must remember that Mr. Alles had no copyright or any other legally protected right to the facts of the murder case.

"If at all, the initiative of Mr. Alles depended on his arrangement of the facts, details and sequences. But being a narrative the incidents, events and sequences per force had to be in a chronological form. Mr. Alles' books were in fact narrative which laid down facts of the murder case as stated by witnesses in a chronological form.

"Copyright is not a tangible thing. When one speaks of Copyright it means that the holder of Copyright is an author of an original work and that he has the exclusive right to do certain things with his original work. Copyright does not protect ideas themselves but only the original expression of ideas. Creation of an original work confers an exclusive right not over the work itself but only over the reproduction of it. There was no allegation in this instance that the headings in Mr. Alles' books were reproduced by Mr. Obeysekera, " the judgment stated.

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