A most shameful moment!
A fiendish attack unleashed on a courts complex in
Mannar by an angry mob on Wednesday should have civilized
circles wondering whether this country is now plunging into a
state of things where nothing is considered sacred. We hardly
need say that the courts are a symbol of justice and its
administration and any attacks on them, physical or otherwise,
need to be construed as attempts to ridicule and insult the
institution of justice, which is so central to the conduct of
civilized living. This is a most shameful moment in the history
of post-independence Sri Lanka!
In a way, this unsettling development should not be seen as a
surprise. Mob rule has been in evidence for quite some time,
particularly in relation to issues involving the Police and the
more volatile sections of the public and it should be plain to
see that the institutions of law and order are not being viewed
with the necessary deference and respect by the totality of the
public. This is the message that is blared forth garishly by mob
attacks on police stations, for instance. Increasingly, unruly
elements among the public have been attempting to take the law
into their hands and it should not come as a surprise if courts
are now being made the targets of such insane attacks.
This is a most opprobrious situation for the whole of Sri
Lanka and we condemn the conduct of the mob which attacked the
courts complex in Mannar in the strongest terms. Bring these
violators of the law to justice, is our request to the state.
There is no choice but to impose the law most stringently on
these transgressors.
While enforcing the law rigorously is essential for curbing
the current wave of lawlessness, it is also important that we
dwell on the social processes that make anarchic trends of this
kind possible. A study of these processes is likely to disclose
what needs to be done to contain the present wave of criminality
and lawlessness. In other words, policy prescriptions and
perspectives on the containment of the current law and order
situation could be fashioned.
The thought cannot be avoided that the stage was set for
attacks against the institutions of justice way back in the
early eighties when the residence of a Supreme Court judge was
savaged by a goon squad of the powers that were. That was a
politically-induced attack which was carefully planned and
executed, over an SC ruling that was not to the liking of the
then government, but the Mannar mayhem and that attack of the
eighties do not differ in kind. They are both attempts to
belittle and insult the judiciary of this country. To that
extent, both attacks need to be strongly condemned in the same
breath.
Besides, other less pronounced dimensions in the problem need
to be focused on. That is, we, the polity, need to view with
alarm the increasing tendency on the part of some sections to
look down on the institutions of justice. Proportionately, what
is being undermined is the Rule of Law and it ought to be clear
that the end result of the relentless abandoning of law and
order is anarchy and maniacal disorder.
Wednesday's attack, no doubt, took place in a region which
was once part of the war zone and it is possible to see the
attack as an outgrowth of the lawlessness which once thrived in
the North when the LTTE challenged the state. But this is no
extenuating circumstance because challenges to the institutions
of law and order have been mounting over the years in the South
as well and the Mannar violence should be seen as a
manifestation of the widespread lawlessness.
Defusing lawlessness needs to be seen as a collective effort
on the part of the total polity. All sections and political
forces need to see this task as being in the national interest
and therefore should join the state in containing criminality
and criminal acts. None would gain from such mayhem. It is the
country which would suffer from runaway criminality. Therefore,
all sections of the polity need to look beyond narrow interests. |