Sunday Times 2
A smart country: Look at our lawbreakers
View(s):I was intrigued last week to hear that the President, addressing the special general convention of the United National Party, had outlined to the party faithful his plans to make Sri Lanka a “Smart Country”.
Announcing the theme ‘Smart Country – 2048’, the president spoke of building an intelligent and prosperous Sri Lanka where our citizens would uphold virtuous goals.
This is a virtuous intention indeed – though I have to accept the fact that the chances of my being alive in 2048 to see this smart transformation are very slim indeed. Even the president and his prime minister would both be ninety nine years old come March 2048.
But how do we start making ours a Smart Country?
I cannot help musing about the comment made by one of my contemporaries when the newly elected president Maithripala Sirisena appointed his first cabinet in 2015. Sirisena had appointed no less than three ministers and two deputy ministers to deal with Education and Higher Education! Quoth my friend when he heard the news “What this country needs is not more ministers of education – but more educated ministers.”
Judging by the folk we have elected to the current parliament, we as a people have proved ourselves to be not very smart. Tasked with the responsibility at each parliamentary election of sending worthy representatives to the legislature, we elect not lawmakers but lawbreakers. We have so many members of parliament who are smart, not at making laws – but smart at breaking the law and getting away with it.
Just this month, the Speaker had to caution no less a person than the Minister of Justice and chairman of the Parliamentary Ethics Committee, Wijedasa Rajapakshe, and his colleague, former insurance agent turned rich man Mahindadananda Aluthgamage, for ‘unconscionable conduct in the well of parliament’. In his ruling, the Speaker observed that both Rajapakshe and Althugamage had resorted to unconscionable and unethical conduct by calling for mob aggression against the Constitutional Council—and even agreeing to participate in such aggression. The Minister, said the Speaker, had made baseless allegations in the House against the Constitutional Council—which were then repeated by Aluthgamage.
The Speaker reminded Members that the people expect their representatives “to act honourably and in good faith, with reason and in the best interests of the people.”
The famous 17th-century English philosopher John Locke, in discussing the legitimacy of the State’s power over the individual, observed that we citizens surrender some of our individual freedoms and submit to authority in exchange for protection. We sacrifice our independence and accept the authority of our rulers in order to obtain their protection. We believe that we will be looked after by those we elect or select to govern us.
Unfortunately, what has happened in our country is that those we elect to govern and protect us do not prioritise the need to protect the people. Sometimes, in fact, we citizens have to be protected from the actions of our own elected representatives.
If one were to make a list of those serving as lawmakers in our legislature who have behaved as lawbreakers, it is not difficult to identify a host of miscreants.
A prime example is that of Minister Prasanna Ranatunga who was sentenced in June last year to two years rigorous imprisonment after he was found guilty by the Colombo High Court for threatening a businessman and demanding money from him. The sentence on Ranatunga was suspended for five years—leaving this man who was convicted of a criminal charge free to continue functioning as a minister of government.
A more recent case is that of Puttalam District Parliamentarian Ali Sabry Raheem, who was apprehended by Customs officials and caught smuggling 3.5 kg of gold and 91 mobile phones worth 80 million rupees when returning on one of his regular flights from Dubai. After being fined 7.5 million rupees for his crime (a paltry fine, according to some quarters, compared to what other criminals have to pay for similar offences,) Raheem was released—and he still continues to represent his constituency in Parliament.
The stories about some of our legislators make some very interesting reading. We have had legislators convicted of murder who have then been pardoned by a president—and later re-arrested after the Supreme Court suspended the presidential pardon. We have had a legislator convicted and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment for breaking immigration laws and helping a friend travel with him on forged travel documents to the 1999 Cricket World Cup—and we now have another legislator who used his ministerial position to obtain a forged passport for his wife. The wife was convicted and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment—but the accessory before the fact remains a member of parliament and a party leader.
Psychologists describe various types of Intelligence or Smartness – Logical Smartness, Linguistic Smartness, Interpersonal Smartness etc.
From what we are seeing in our country, the smartness shown by some of our parliamentarians is of an entirely different category.
We can only wish the president well in his endeavours to make our next generation smart—but not as smart as these lawbreaking lawmakers.