The Chief Injustice

chief justice fb

A banner making the rounds on Facebook.

Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake is being threatened with impeachment because she defied the Rajapaksa government. Specifically, she said that they needed Provincial Council approval before Basil Rajapaksa could fold Samurdhi and other rural/poor support schemes into a national system. This essentially gave him central control over a huge patronage scheme. Since this Divineguma bill did seem to require provincial approval, the CJ ruled that. Now she’s being impeached.

At it’s not like the Chief Justice was some great opponent of the government or defender of the law. She’s a political appointee who seemed to rubber stamp what the government was doing, and whose husband accepted any number of lucrative government positions. Yet this seems to be one case where she felt like she couldn’t bend or ignore that law. And this is the price you pay.

In a mafia, everybody does wrong. In many gangs to enter you have to commit a crime or kill someone. The security here is that the gang then separates you from polite society and has control of you. They have something over you. In China everybody seems to be corrupt, so if the center ever wants to get rid of someone, like Bo Xilai, they have enough and more charges of corruption and crime to bring against them. Of course, there’s enough cases against everyone. That’s what gives the center power, when almost everyone is corrupt, it’s selective enforcement that matters.

In the Rajapaksa government, presumably everybody has done something dodgy, perhaps even the Chief Justice. That makes it easier to get rid of her, or anyone, even though the system is actually rotting from the top. I’m not sure the government is even getting that creative thought. Their main charges seem to be that she delivered a bill to the wrong person and that she ruled against the authority of the Parliament. Which is A) minor and B) just doing her job. They’re also hinting at corruption, but the whole case against her seems remarkably weak.

They also continuing to attack and tarnish the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission, who was recently attacked and brutally beaten. An attack which the government condemns, even as they continue to condemn the victim. Added up they’re really trying to subsume and squash a judiciary which many people thought was already pretty close to the ground. I mean, it seems like the government was getting the rulings it wanted, on everything from the 18th amendment to land appropriation bills. But I guess they weren’t getting everything they wanted, they weren’t getting absolute sycophancy, so the Chief Justice needs to be impeached. And the fat patrons in Parliament are quick to sign something they’ve barely read so the Rajapaksas can spread their patronage system to the village level and corrupt the judiciary even deeper than I thought possible.

The previous Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva actually deserved to be impeached, ruling on cases before he heard them and generally making policy from the bench. Yet he somehow remained a thorn in the government (and everyone’s) side until he retired. People tried to impeach him but failed. But there were serious charges against him. If this Chief Justice is impeached for basically just opposing the Rajapaksas, it will confirm that the only real crime in Sri Lankan is being on the wrong side of the family, not the wrong side of the law.

19 Comments

  1. “Specifically, she said that they needed Provincial Council approval before Basil Rajapaksa could fold Samurdhi and other rural/poor support schemes into a national system. This essentially gave him central control over a huge patronage scheme. ”

    I think the SC decision was that the governor could not take a decision behalf of the provincial council (when that council is not functioning). Northern provincial council is not functioning and will remain like that for some time.
    You do have consider the fact that the SC previously ruled that the “devi naguma” is according to the constitution (that was before her husband got the court case).

    “At it’s not like the Chief Justice was some great opponent of the government or defender of the law. She’s a political appointee who seemed to rubber stamp what the government was doing, and whose husband accepted any number of lucrative government positions. Yet this seems to be one case where she felt like she couldn’t bend or ignore that law. And this is the price you pay.”

    to tell you the truth, i don’t think she wasn’t as bad or corrupt as Sarath N. silva (though various factions accused her to be a complete puppet). She was a political appointee who was a academic who somehow became a Judge (by CBK i think). And as i can remember she was the senior Judge in the SC when she was appointed CJ.

    But according to you she (though this was decided by a bench) somehow decided to take the side of the law (same time her husband is in court for doing the NSB-The Finance deal without the board approval.). And mind you, lot of legal pundits made the case that this decision by the SC is it self unconstitutional since the time has passed when the SC can give it’s opinion on a bill (in SL constitution, the SC can only give its opinion about a bill. It does not have the power to nullify a law. And the parliament can go around the SC by something called a “emergency bill;”). So what the SC has done is within a period of months is that, it has revisited its decision and (allegedly) change it (while the CJs husband is being prosecuted).

  2. Her husband’s appointment as the Chairman of SLIC and NSB is just a trap from the MA-RA and she fell into the bait.
    he was just a sales guy from Ceylinco and was appointed to the NSB together with the Royal astrologer one chap from Galle and the share transaction was a collective responsibility and i am sure it was all done with the request or MR and now with CJ turning tables, MARA find a way to get this guy arrested and force CJ to fall with the MARA’s line or what happened to SF will happen.

    At least we should be proud of this lady to have ‘balls’ to go against MARA and his junta and safeguard the rule or law which is detorioting day by day.

    Though its too late, I like to think her like a modern day Sri Lankan ‘Sui Ki’ of Burma.

    I sincerely hope this willbe the begining of the end of MA-RA.

  4. By the way, if you read the document at the above link, what one sees on the front page is only the executive summary. Click on the link to the right of the page to download the full report.

  5. it seems it took a prosecuted husband for her to grow “balls” (according to your logic).

    “I sincerely hope this willbe the begining of the end of MA-RA.”

    Since every one dies in the end and any politician would loose his popularity with time (after being appointed), i would 100% agree with you.

  6. BTW due to some unusual turn of events if the government withdraws the impeachment motion, what do you suggest the CJ should do (considering her husbands case)?

  7. The CJ’s hubbies acceptance of charimanship is something should not have happened as its clearly a matter of conflicts of interests. But.. in present day Sri Lanka, who cares of ethics ? just money talks.

    What CJ and her husband have done is 1% of MA-RA and his family have done in looting the economy and making SL a priah state.

    I think the only option for any educated Sri Lankan is now to migrate to some country like west/Ausssie/Canada etc.

    There is not future in this country and i am glad that i made that move to live the rest of my life in peace and developed world.

  8. CJs husband accepting the chairmanship is not the real conflict of interest issue.

  10. to SACK

    I am not sure what world you were in for the last few years mate..
    CJ’s husband was nominated to ICSL chairmanship by the very same supreme courtl where his wife is the CJ.

    In a banana republic like this, anything can happen accordin to the King and his jesters.

  11. CJ’s husband was not nominated by the SC. He was nominated by the government (probably MR working through the PB Jayasundara).

    And you know, Mr.Kariyawasam wasn’t ordered in to all these positions at SLIC and NSB (he wasn’t forced in to these positions). He had the full freedom to say No. And for whatever reason he accepted them.

    So while your are asking us to feel proud of this lady CJ, your are also pointing to some serious problems about her.
    I do really miss your point.

    The real, clear conflict of interest issue is CJ presiding the bench (SC and the whole SL court system) while her husband is being tried in lower court.

  12. here you go… from Wikipaedia

    The SLIC Controversy In June 2009 the Supreme Court issued as order to the Treasury Secretary to appoint a Board of Directors for the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) after the governmental takeover. The Government nominated him as the new Chairman of the Board.[6] This resulted in a conflict of interest as it was the supreme court which had appointed the first board of directors of SLIC after the nationalisation the company.[7]

    yes., Pradeep Kariyawasam should not have accepted this position at all though these are MA-RAs longterm plans to get hold of the CJ and that worked so good in here.

    but in this corrupt System, what Kariyasawam have done is nothing compared for the loot that Rajapakshas have done for the economy.

  13. Well it’s not really a tricky question. The case of conflict of interest is not really subtle.
    A tricky question would be “what will be the UNPs stand?”.

    Because they have been calling for a investigation about the NFC-TFC deal and what happened at the NSB was called a “Sophisticated bank robbery” by Dr Harsha (MP). And that’s a public statement.

    Whatever investigation about the said deal would focus on the bank chairmen. And it want be the in the interest of the investigation if the chairman’s spouse is the country’s top judge.

  14. If the point you were trying to prove was that MR is corrupt, it does not need proving. Everyone including the most hardcore MR supporters know that.

    But whether Mr.Kariyavasam was appointed to these positions as a part of some long term plan to corner the CJ by framing him in corrupt deal is another matter.

    More likely, like many other political appointees Mr.Kariyavasam was appointed in order to influence the someone( in this case the SC. He or his wife did not have any problem with that). And considering his past activities (according to the same Wikipedia you quoted), NSB-TFC deal could be his own doing. After that thing blew up, the relationship between government and CJ would obviously have deteriorated.

Comments are closed.