Columns

Last Thursday’s historic judgment of the seven-member bench of the Supreme Court in favour of the fundamental rights petitions filed by the aggrieved and the concerned over the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attack is a stark lesson to politicians and the bureaucracy that they are not immune from responsibility and accountability for their actions.

Politicians, especially those in the highest office, believe they are eternally immune from the abuse and misuse of the law because they hold that office. Other politicians and errant officials think they can worm their way out of corruption and violation of the law because they are dressed in uniform or have political backing and influence to forever hide away from the rigours of justice.

This far-reaching Supreme Court judgment is a reminder to them all that violating fundamental rights and the very essence of the constitution under which the people are deemed sovereign, will not be treated lightly.

It is also a lesson to those who draft vaguely-worded legislation to criminalise what they do not like such as free speech, free thought and peaceful assembly, doctor or fiddle with evidence, that if man’s law does not catch up with them, the karmic law will.

Some of them would hardly have heard of the metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell. Still, if I might adapt his words to throw some light into the darkest recesses of their heads, one good deed might have been done early in this New Year.

“At their back they will always hear,

Time’s wingḕd chariot hurrying near.”

As long this country has independent judges, those that are not swayed by political power and influence, are ready to apply the law without fear or favour at all levels of the judicial system and state officials who are not beholden to uneducated, corrupt politicians with mouths as large as the Indian Ocean and as polluted, this once-respected country will return to some form of its past glory.

But whether we will do so will depend on many factors. One is whether we will ever have honest, upright politicians who are ready to combat corruption and bribery without sloganeering and working to save their fellow politicians whichever side of the barricades they are on.

Secondly, the country deserves an independent and untrammelled justice system that is ready to stand up against other arms of the state as this Supreme Court has done, and, thirdly, is willing to defend the constitutional rights of the people, their right to freedom of speech and expression and to assemble peacefully to do so.

It also underlines a very critical feature of international law — the right to life — which, ( I may be mistaken here) was not earlier enshrined in our constitution) though last week some attorney-at-law attached to the State writing in a Sunday newspaper extolled the value of this right over such disposable junk as the peoples’ right to exercise the franchise.

While it would be churlish to question the value of the right to life, one would have expected such concern and agitation to arise on hearing of the number of citizens who appear to lose that right when in the hands (not to mention arms) of the ‘guardians’ of the law.

But no. His concern seems to be the money that would be spent on local government elections when many people are finding it difficult to have a square meal or two each day. Surprising that such a legal eagle did not ask himself the basic question — who and what brought the country to this virtual state of economic collapse by engaging in foolish fiscal policies and borrowing money at will and embarking on financial profligacy to satisfy their vanity.

Who, by the way, was responsible for expanding the number of local government members and advocating higher allowances and perks for MPs? Much of this happened in the last decade or more.

Not only are some political leaders and their henchmen opposed to holding elections as they should be without further delay, but they are also turning to nugatory defences on why elections should be further postponed.

One argument that is being pushed by those who fear possible defeat for their respective political parties, is that the time is not ripe for elections, that they could be held after the economy improves and the country can afford it. Right now, they say, there is no money for it.

Pray when will the time be ripe? When will the economy recover to the point that local government elections will be possible?

Strangely nobody seems to know for sure nor can Gnana Akka, wherever she is just now, appear to be able to predict. Earlier the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime turned to soothsayer Gnana Akka instead of the IMF.

But even the IMF is holding back because some of the essential conditions it needs satisfied such as debt sustainability and agreement on debt restructuring, are still light years away and not round the corner as government leaders and Central Bank officials seemed to suggest.

Just last week the UK’s Guardian newspaper quoted a statement from a group of 182 economists and development experts saying that “some of the world’s most powerful hedge funds and other investors are holding up vital help for crisis-hit Sri Lanka by their hardline stance in debt-relief negotiations after the Asian country’s $51bn (£42bn) default last year, according to 182 economists and development experts from around the world”.

It quoted the group as saying that “extensive debt cancellation was needed to give the economy a chance of recovery and that Sri Lanka would be a test case of the willingness of the international community to tackle a looming global debt crisis.”

So those who are talking of economic recovery before elections might well be waiting for Godot unless they know damned well that this will be a long time coming but a good excuse for urging a further postponement of the elections.

Just the other day Cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardane was quoted as saying that no Sri Lankan political leader will be able to provide a solution to the country’s dire economic situation while President Ranil Wickremesinghe addressing the Sri Lanka Economic Forum 2022 last December dropped a clanger.

He told the business community waiting to hear of his economic reforms “What reforms when we don’t have an economy”. He added candidly, “I have no plan for reforms.”

For a country that doesn’t have the Rs 10 billion that it had set aside in the budget as costs for the local government election it sure seems to have money to pay for increased salaries and pensions for upgraded senior military officers and other ranks — five times between Gotabaya and Ranil Wickremesinghe if I remember correctly — police officers and most recently the STF, pay bonuses to the staff of heavily indebted Sri Lankan Airlines and other state-run institutions.

And there we are, appointing cabinet ministers and state ministers as though they would be extinct before long — which would be a real benefit to a nation over-burdened with political flunkeys.

Now that we are on the subject of elections there are widely circulating stories about attempts to influence, if not pressurise, the independent Elections Commission and other attempts to mislead the public with talk about divisions within the Commission.

This has been strongly denied by the chairman of the Commission who has pointed out that all the relevant gazette notifications relating to the election had been signed by all five members of the Commission.

On top of that, there were other moves to interfere in the election with the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils, Local Government and whatnot, firing off a letter to district secretaries not to accept deposits from would-be candidates for the upcoming election.

As the Election Commissioner rightly pointed out, once Returning Officers were named only the judiciary and the Commission could intervene in their duties.

If such seeming attempts to disrupt the holding of constitutionally legitimate elections by various ruses would undermine the constitution and the rule of law, who knows that in the not-too-distant future, there would be other petitions against attempts to violate the fundamental rights of the people and the perpetrators suffer similar fates or worse as those who were found guilty the other day of failing in their duties.

Just one question for those waiting for the economy to recover before holding elections. What if the economy does not recover or takes another 20 years to do so? What then. No elections. Or as Uncle Dicky said after his great 1977 electoral victory— “roll up the election map”.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)