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Impeachment imbroglio - separating noise from fact

It is not unusual to see the full force of the NGO lobby and local and foreign agent provocateurs aimed against the imminent impeachment hearings on the conduct of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike. As usual, the NGO team appears to be skippered by Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, who has a print-ready statement on anything that he probably thinks can increase the baksheesh flow from his munificent funders, but that’s a different matter.

Why else, the hurry to say that the impeachment motion involving the conduct of the Chief Justice is part of the effort by the government to ‘control everything’?

This is rather amnesic on the part of the skipper of all NGO skippers --- he probably does not remember that it was precisely these same NGO lobby groups that were saying that the Chief Justice should resign, when it was revealed that her husband was serving in an Executive capacity in the National Savings Bank.

How convenient is it for these rather stern disciplinarians in the non-governmental sector to argue on both sides of the issue? Alright, they say, rectitude and general observation of niceties requires that the Chief Justice should resign when there is a ‘taint’ in the form of her husband being a public servant appointed to a high-post.

But then, when the chief justice who does not resign on this count, is to be investigated with an eye towards her removal from office, the same people who said she should go are now adamant that she should remain because the government, they say, is not doing right.

One might as well say that the moral of the story is that by the credo of these NGO mandarins, the government must always lose, and of course could and should never win. The corollary of that is of course that they are always right, even when they patently contradict themselves on the issues, so as to appear ludicrous.

The argument now is that the government is attempting to exert influence on certain decisions that are to be taken by the Supreme Court, and that there is an infringement upon the independence of the judiciary. But didn’t the self-righteous (also self-appointed) watchdogs and sentinels in our civil society all say that it was just not right that the Chief Justice stays on, when there was something that was just not right about her conduct - i.e. her remaining in office while her spouse was holding a high-post? Didn’t they say that justice must not only be done, it must also appear to be done, inferring that the slightest taint on the name of the Chief Justice even by association has a harmful affect on her integrity or performance, or both?

We certainly do not want to prejudice the hearings on the issue of the chief justice that are to take place within the Parliamentary Select Committee proceedings that would inevitably give her a hearing on the motion to impeach her. But, since the skipper of all NGO skippers had been so modest as to make known his views on this matter first, his sage wisdom does call for some kind of response.

Meanwhile, the US government too has made some observations on this issue, in the form of a statement by the US ambassador to Geneva Irene Donahue Chamberlain. She said at the UNHRC Universal Periodic Review sessions in Geneva this week that Sri Lanka should “Especially in light of today’s news of the efforts to impeach the Chief Justice, strengthen judicial independence by ending government interference with the judicial process, protecting members of the judiciary from attacks, and restoring a fair, independent, and transparent mechanism to oversee judicial appointments.”

The sentiments in themselves sound impressive, but viewed in context, they ignore the fact that the government is following the lead of the opposition in ensuring judicial independence in the country - of precisely the kind that the US government so badly wants. It is in the main the opposition that wanted the Chief Justice to be free from any association of taint, as explained above in the preceding paragraphs of this editorial.

Again, the no-win in the situation borders on the absurd. Observes Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu that the very people who made the appointment, are now trying to impeach the person appointed. The fact is that the appointment was made, precisely because there is a transparent mechanism that is overseeing judicial appointments, as Ms. Chamberlain has said she desires.

But then, as the civil society types themselves had stated, despite the propriety of the appointment, the Chief Justice was unable for long, to stay free from the affects of taint. If that’s the case, isn’t the government strengthening judicial independence in precisely the way the US ambassador wants by asking the CJ to go, after having followed the due process and transparency in the matter of appointing her to her post?


 

JUDGES, not ABOVE the LAW

‘JSC, tribunal of LIMITED jurisdiction’ - Part III :

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Frankenweather

Cuba has prided itself on its ability to weather storms. When Hurricane Katrina lashed the Caribbean in 2005, whereas the damage to the United States of America was considerable - with 1, 836 dead - the island’s efficient emergency response system meant only two died.

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JUDGE HUMAN RIGHTS relative to ground reality

It is my privilege and pleasure to share with the 14th Session of the UPR Working Group information and perspectives on the action taken to promote and protect human rights in Sri Lanka in the period since our first review in 2008. It has been our consistently articulated position that, in the particular circumstances and context of the Sri Lankan situation, the UPR process provides the best opportunity to raise questions and seek clarifications about the evolving situation in the country.

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