The Whitewash

Apparently, UNP parliamentarians and their heavy-duty backers in the private media are in a sanctimonious tizzy over what they say is the ‘character assassination of the secretary of the Judicial Services Commission taking cover under parliamentary privilege.’ This has to be sanctimonious humbuggery at its peak -- it being known that opposition members of Parliament, particularly those of the UNP, have mastered the methods of calumny and character assassination under cover of ‘privilege’ to the point of a fine art.

For example, when an attorney-at-law happened to be set upon and assaulted after an annual lawyers’ tamasha, high-profile members of the opposition added insult to injury by attempting to tarnish the good name of the victim, just because the assailant was in close cahoots with the UNP leadership. None of the totally unsubstantiated characterizations made of the victim lawyer were remotely correct; they were so laughable as to make the speakers who made the accusations laugh self-consciously in the course of their delivery -- so absurdly off the mark was the content.

But now, the same abusers of the powers of privilege, seem to be expressing shock at the fact that there were some legitimate observations made about the secretary of the Judicial Services Commission, and the circumstances surrounding his appointment to that post.

When Minister G.L. Peiris said that it was constitutionally untenable to have a person thirty slots down on the seniority list appointed as the secretary JSC, he was not ‘setting the tone for character assassination’ as has been observed by some opposition hacks. On the contrary the External Affairs Minister was giving voice to the bitter but unalloyed truth that the modus operandi followed in the appointment of the JSC secretary was questionable.

If this argument could not be treated on its merits or counter arguments adduced to the contrary, it probably meant that the opposition had no credible response to the minister’s position. It is rather rich, therefore, to say under the circumstances that the Minister set the tone for ‘character assassination in the House.’

It is even richer to say this vis-a-vis an opposition which has got away many times with base and evil slander of public persons taking cover under the cloak of parliamentary privilege. It is pertinent therefore to pause for a moment and consider the merits of what the Minister said, then, despite the creaky whining of the opposition apologist hack-media factory.

If there were 30 persons who were more senior than the individual who was ultimately appointed to the JSC secretary’s post, that should have been a fact that the opposition should have noticed, before the government did. It is not cliche to say that the cardinal and unrelenting duty of the opposition is to oppose.

Having let what is basically an untenable appointment -- unconstitutional to boot -- happen without a murmur, the opposition and the hack factory now have the audacity to say that the anomaly concerning the JSC secretary’s appointment has been brought up in Parliament due to ulterior motives.

It is enough to say that it is the opposition more than the government that should be concerned about the rectitude and the suitability of officials holding high posts -- particularly those posts that require a high degree of integrity, such as that of the secretary of the JSC.

But as in a great many things in this country, we have this curious case of the opposition and its civil society backers trying to palm off the airing of the glaring fact this high official was appointed over 30 people’s heads, as an instance of ‘abuse of parliamentary privilege.’

When the opposition abuses parliamentary privilege to character assassinate through maliciously motivated slander, that is called ‘setting the record straight.’

When responsible members of Cabinet attempt to set the record straight, that is called character assassination.

This is in the topsy-turvy world of narrative-fabrication in the Sri Lankan political milieu. It is nothing new, but it is also time that somebody called the bluff, and made it very clear that the boundaries of ‘good behaviour’ are not used to limit members of Parliament of one side only, while those on the other side of the aisle are known to have a ball venting their spleen at the drop of a hat, at all and sundry.