Focus on Rights

Keeping cricket free from politics

If one takes the personality out of the picture, it is doubtful whether the judgement delivered by the Supreme Court some ten days back, paving the way for Arjuna Ranatunge (once a cricketer, now a parliamentarian) to contest for the post of Cricket Board Chief would have been greeted in quite the same way by sports lovers in this country. But then, this is Sri Lanka. And personalities (if not personal interests) are the name of the game in this incestuous little culture of ours. So, the issue went by the board and will probably remain that way. Until, of course, a political thug of a calibre different to Ranatunge (let alone his even more illustrious predecessor politicians who held office as head of the Cricket Board, Gamini Dissanayake, J.R Jayewardene or Dr N.M. Perera), contests and wins the post. Then, it is a matter of tossing a coin to judge the reaction. For the moment however, everyone (well, almost) is happy.

Personalities aside, the nature of Ranatunge's complaint before the Supreme Court and judicial reasoning resulting in judgement in his favour, deserves its own analysis for more reasons than one. From one perspective, the regulation promulgated by the Sports Minister under the Sports Law No 25 of 1973 prohibiting a parliamentarian or member of any provincial, municipal, urban or local government body from becoming office bearers of sports associations had a clear rationale behind it. This, in other words, applied the same well established rule prohibiting members of parliament etc from holding paid office in statutory bodies to voluntary associations such as sports bodies. The extension of the rule also drew upon the same rationale, namely that politicians, by virtue of the position that they hold in terms of political power and influence, are in a peculiarly privileged situation and as such, should not be allowed to contest office in national associations, in this case, sports associations. The principle that appeared to defeat his complaint at first glance was therefore easily understandable. Sports bodies and associations in Sri Lanka should be made free of political interference and influence.

From the other perspective, Ranatunge's case before court was that the regulation violated not only his right to equality under Section 12(1) but also his right to non discrimination on the basis of political opinion. The third right allegedly infringed was his freedom to engage by himself or in association with others in any lawful occupation, profession, trade, business or enterprise. Ranatunge specifically stated that even before the general election in 2001 by which he was elected as member of parliament for the district of Colombo from the People’s Alliance, he had publicly declared his intention of contesting the impending election of the Board of Control for Cricket. He complained that the regulation promulgated by the Sports Minister consequent to the United Front government capturing political power in that election was aimed at him so that he would be prevented from so contesting.

Judgement was delivered by Justice Asoka de Silva, (with Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva and Justice Weerasuriya agreeing), upholding Ranatunge's rights violations. The reasoning of the Court as to the manner in which the rights violations occurred was fairly straightforward in some respects and less so in others.

In the first instance, the Court accepts (as it surely must) that de-politicisation of sports associations is a laudable objective. The question however is whether that objective is achieved by the regulation in question. To the Court's mind, the regulation was unfair in its specific application to parliamentarians and so on, which would necessarily leave many politicians who are not Members of Parliament such as the Chairman of a political party, the General Secretary, members of Executive Committees and Central Committees open to contest posts. The classification was therefore deemed as arbitrary and devoid of any substantial basis, consequently defeating the objective of the regulation.

The reasoning used by court in this regard was the classic test of permissible classification according to which firstly, the classification must be based on intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from others left out of the group and secondly, that the differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the regulation in question. The latter necessarily involves the establishing of a definite nexus between the basis of classification and the object of the regulation. It was this nexus that the Court ruled was absent in the instant case.

In more complex reasoning, the Court also pointed out that a report submitted by a committee of inquiry to the Minister of Sports and Parliamentary Affairs in 1971 had contained recommendations that politics and sports should be kept apart as it had been alleged that there is bureaucratic and political interference.

However, the Sports Law which was enacted following the committee report, did not contain a definite prohibition against politicians contesting sports bodies. Instead, the disqualifications related to persons of unsound mind, insolvents and persons convicted of moral turpitude.

Included also were persons who, at any time, had coached sports competitors for payment, professional sports reporters and non-nationals of Sri Lanka. Political views or political colour of a person was, according to court, deliberately omitted from this list.

Accordingly, the Court agreed with Ranatunge in the view that there was “no logic, reason or justification" for the Sports Minister to prohibit members of parliament from holding office in sports associations, particularly in view of those individuals of stature such as Dr N.M Perera, J.R. Jayewardene, Gamini Dissanayake who had held similar office previously.

What is interesting in this particular regard is that while the Sports Law lays down the power of the Minister to prescribe by regulation, the composition and constitution of such associations, stipulation of disqualifications for membership is actually contained not in the Law itself but in regulations enacted thereunder in 1974. Given this fact, the argument before court would conceivably have been that by virtue of the regulations being gazetted and passed by parliament, it was thereby 'deemed to be law', thus assuming the same significance as the Sports Law itself. This is an argument that appears to have been accepted by court even though there is no specific discussion of its reasoning.

In retrospect, it would be a pity if the issue of politicisation of sports associations is allowed to lapse with this judgement, merely due to the context of this present case. Instead, the Sports Ministry should contemplate a less ham handed reiteration of the fundamental principle in a context where all politicians and not merely members of parliament etc are prohibited from contesting regardless of past practice by a specific regulation or even an amendment to the Sports Law itself. The decision by the government prohibiting its own Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs from holding positions in sports bodies consequent to the Supreme Court judgement, for obvious reasons, will only address part of the problem. More definitive action is still needed.

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