Editorial

The Government has promised to establish an ‘independent’ Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), with the Cabinet spokesman venturing no further details except to assure that this will not lead to the abolition of the Department of the Attorney General.

A DPP will ‘deliver justice’ more effectively, it is claimed. A committee with representatives of the Government, the official and the unofficial Bar and a senior judge with expertise in the relevant field will present a concept paper for public input.

This promise raises more questions than it answers. There is little question that the Attorney General has been subjected to the tug and pull of political pressure for decades, some succumbing willingly to political commands, others resisting even at the cost of their own careers, and yet others, unwillingly being drawn into public controversy through perhaps little fault of their own except a lack of prudence.

The Attorney General enjoys a wide ambit of powers that have traditionally been left undisturbed by the courts, other than to affirm their ability to examine in principle. Perhaps it is time that Sri Lanka witnessed a more robust exercise of judicial review against unreasonable and irrational exercise of prosecutorial decisions, particularly the filing of indictments, discharging suspects or withdrawing indictments.

In fact, the abolition of penal provisions relating to criminal defamation followed failed attempts by journalists to persuade the Court to reverse the arbitrary and visibly politicised filing of indictments for criminal defamation under the Chandrika Kumaratunga Presidency. Even though criminal defamation later disappeared from the statute books following a media-led campaign for its abolition, the trend of politicised prosecutions in other respects continued. The Attorney General is also being slated for not giving his opinion on Bills being presented to the House, which are later ruled as unconstitutional. But ministers often do not forward draft legislation for the examination of the state law office before tabling it in the House, with the result that half-baked Bills are judicially shot down.

On all these counts, the Attorney General has become a convenient target for politicians to revile, even though politicians themselves are much to blame given their blatant interference in the prosecutorial function. It is only when sitting in the Opposition benches that they preach about the independence of the prosecutor. Criminal investigators (i.e., the Police) bowing and scraping to the will of their political masters also, or to financial inducements, submit files containing incomplete investigations that do not stand a chance of conviction. These matters are not adequately explained to the public, allowing disinformation to run wild. Such a situation may be avoided if the AG’s Department authorises a spokesperson to respond to mainstream media queries in the public interest.

The ongoing blame game between the Police and AG accusing each other of prosecution delays on high-profile cases that the Government has promised to investigate, thereby muddying the judicial process, has made for an ugly public spectacle. Even so, the propensity of a President summoning the Attorney General demanding explanations of his decisions in specific cases does not augur well for the independence of state prosecutors either, whether an incumbent AG or a future DPP.

A critical look back at history may be useful. Will the return of a DPP be on the lines of what functioned for a short period in the 1970s as a separate unit of the Department of the Attorney General and was discarded due to allegations of taking orders from the then Minister of Justice? Whichever is being contemplated, will the promised cure be worse than the disease, paving the way for a DPP that is a ‘Director of Politicised Prosecutions’?

Power to the people—or the lack of it

 

An islandwide blackout struck again last Sunday, plunging Sri Lanka into darkness for four-and-a-half hours after an incident at the Panadura substation triggered a cascade shutdown of the country’s entire power system.

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) adopted a familiar playbook: it produced a report, which it submitted to the regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka. Recommendations are likely to be made if a committee is appointed (as was done on some previous occasions). But critics point out that the utility is yet to demonstrate that it has implemented a majority of directions for prevention and improvement published in past reports—and they fear that future blackouts cannot be ruled out either.

Between 2020 and February 2025, four total blackouts and at least two serious partial ones prompted inquiries. The reasons given include earth faults, multiple lightning strikes, transmission technical failures, and, in August 2020, an electrical superintendent bypassing standard maintenance procedure at the Kerawalapitiya grid substation.

The explanations given about last Sunday’s system failure—before the CEB report was issued—are a case in point. The CEB’s own engineers’ union claimed that it was an oversupply of rooftop solar power (all of which is not visible to the CEB’s system control) that caused an “imbalance” in the grid. Another explanation is that the inverter settings of rooftop solar units are set at low tolerance, causing them to switch off when there is a slight voltage drop.

Yet another was a mismatch between supply and demand, a reason the CEB has cited in the past. It’s related to poor proper planning and forecasting. Simply put, in the absence of electricity storage (battery energy storage systems, pumped storage, etc., which the CEB is yet to acquire), the power generated in the system should precisely match the power demand at any given instance. A deviation from this balance causes problems.

Finally, it was held that the last blackout and all others during the past ten years are “due to incorrect configuration of the power system protection system”. As our story on page 10 reports, the absence of proper protection coordination in the entire power system caused everything to switch off when there was a slight voltage drop at the Panadura substation.

These are only some of the issues plaguing Sri Lanka’s power system. Without fixing basic transmission system weaknesses, the CEB proposes to add even more power plants to the grid. While some remedies do need considerable investment, solutions such as correcting the power system settings require only a knowledgeable engineer, a laptop, and data cables. Introducing new generation options won’t solve the country’s blackouts when basic system errors continue.