Rajapaksas Are Used To Getting What They Want, In This Case A Chief Justice

Mahinda Family Poster

Sign saying ‘outsiders are not allowed in’, at a kade in Kalutara.

The Rajapaksa family is used to getting what they want. The kids want to race cars or be astronauts so they get tax breaks and satellites. Mahinda wanted an airline so he got Mihin. Now Basil wants control over provincial level patronage and the Supreme Court was standing in the way. So the family wanted the Chief Justice removed. This, however, does not simply waste the people’s money, it’s a pretty direct violation of law and order. And, quite embarrassingly, the charges are quite patently dumb.

Any charges or Parliament papers are usually a paper cover over the ultimate fact that the Rajapaksas simply want something. The 18th Amendment was simply Mahinda wanting more power. The Fonseka prosecution was simply Mahinda wanting to be rid of someone who’d dared oppose him. In the latter case, however, Fonseka actually was a dodgy dude and the charges, while trumped up and often contradictory, were still believable. In the Shirani Bandaranayake case, however, they have nothing. Like, I thought they we have something on her, but they have absolutely nothing. It’s actually quite pathetic.

The broad charges are that she A) had money B) bought a house C) had bank accounts D) delivered a decision to the wrong ceremonial person E) wrote something in Groundviews (before it existed) and F) has a husband under investigation. I was reading through the charge sheet and it’s just dumb. They couldn’t even make up anything serious. As per her response, she seems to have just bought a house for her sister in Australia, had bank accounts and made some administrative decisions. The charges relating to her husband may be serious, but that’s still not legal grounds for impeaching her, nor do they make any case that it is.

As Bandaranayake’s lawyers said, “The document dated 14/11/2012 contains no charges in Law.” Seriously, there’s nothing there. Even by the broadest definition, there is no grounds for impeachment, and they haven’t even made a compelling story up. Literally, there’s nothing there.

All that’s really there underneath is that the Rajapaksas want her out, and the Rajapaksas usually get what they want. This faux impeachment, however, is really beyond the pale. It’s just patently dumb, and I pity the legal draftsmen who had to convert what a gossipy school note into some sort of coherent document, and failed. Of course, I have nothing but contempt for the MPs who signed this thing, seemingly without reading it, just to curry favor with the king.

11 Comments

  2. Before Rajapaksha’s we had Nicolae Ceau?escu in Romania, Gadaffi in Libya, Saddham Husseinin Iraq and Suharto in Indonesia etc and you all know how they had to leave office and it will be months and days that Rajapaksha’s will be thrown into the dustbin.

    A family controls 72% of the economy and a daylight robbery.

  3. The sad thing is, if there is an election tomorrow, I suspect the govt. will still win. That is the state of our uneducated (m)asses and a lack of credible alternative.

  4. Maybe for his 75th birthday, they’ll officially rename the country as Sri Rajapaksa Lanka in recognition of the Family’s unprecedented contribution to our collective national well-being.
    And this can be our new national anthem:

  5. There are many nuances to this question that I had missed, most critically:

    “There is a vital Constitutional issue on whether the Parliament can “hear” the charges against the Chief Justice. Can the Parliament be converted into a court to try an accused? As we know, it is the judiciary that can hear cases and not the parliament – whether it is against the President, judge of a court or any other. Please read carefully the following paragraph in the Constitution (Article 4(c) of the Constitution):

    “the judicial power of the People shall be exercised by Parliament through Courts, tribunals, and institutions created and established, or recognized by the Constitution, or created and established by law, except in regard to matters relating to the privileges, immunities and powers of Parliament and of its Members, wherein judicial power of the People may be exercised directly by Parliament according to law.”

    It is clear that the cases are to be decided by courts and institutions that have been established to adjudicate judicially. However, parliament can also do it in respect of ONE type of cases; i.e. matters relating to breach of Parliamentary privileges and Nothing Else. Impeachment inquiry of a judge is not one of them. And therefore, the Parliament cannot hear and determine on whether a judge is guilty of misconduct or not.”

    Source:

    http://lankaenews.rsf.org/English/newsc378.html?id=13160

    It should be a tribunal of judges, people who are trained to evaluate evidence who must judge. In the Malaysian constitution it is a tribunal of judges including a selection from Commonwealth countries who must determine wrongdoing. Sri Lanka’s aborted constitution of 2000 also envisaged a tribunal drawn up of Commonwealth judges to determine guilt.

  6. At the rate we’re going the next generation might stage a revolution. Or not. Cause we’re Sri Lankan and allow things to happen.

    I wonder if we had Oil, would we be puppets to the Americans or be bumped off for opposing.

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