‘PROCESS’ HITS THEM YEARS LATER!

The reaction of Sri Lankan civil society to the current impeachment process underway shows one thing --- there is nothing civil about the calculations these people make with an eye on the bottom line.

The last two occasions there were impeachment motions seeking to oust a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, civil society stood with the forces that sought the move. This writer knows of one NGO captain who did so reluctantly for example, because he was the brother-in-law hopeful of the then president or some such thing, but that’s an entirely different matter.

The political calculation of the NGO lobby of that time was that the incumbent Chief Justice should be made to relinquish his post. They had decided this mainly as the government of the day had openly identified with the Chief Justice that was appointed by its then head, the president.

This more than the merits of the case, was their motivating factor in supporting the impeachment against the presiding judge in the apex court at that time.

This calculation would have been prudent. Independent lawyers had already informed the International Bar Association about serious integrity issues involving the then Chief Justice, and all they had asked for was to ascertain whether these allegations were true.

Nobody in civil society at that time thought it fit to raise the issues they are raising today. None of the thinkers in their (think) tanks made so much as a sniffling noise about the ‘lacunae’ in the constitution on the process of impeaching a Chief Justice.

Today, the denizens of civil society have decided that their bread will be better buttered if they oppose the current impeachment motion in the legislature against the sitting CJ.

They make this calculation for the same reason they made the calculation to back the impeachment at that time.

They back causes that are seen to be politically correct in their own circumscribed civil society spaces. If the impeachment motions went through on the past occasions and the then Chief Justice had to face an inquiry at that time it was certain that he would have had to face the Parliamentary Select Committee as the current Chief Justice does today.

The outcry against the Select Committee process ignores the fact that the lawmakers have to rely on the current constitutional document and cannot go beyond it. If there is indeed a loophole and a glaring lacunae as the critics say in relation to impeachment proceedings, the constitution has to be amended.

The legislature cannot possibly be blamed for working within the stipulates laid out in the current constitutional document, which states that there should be a process by law or according to Standing Orders that should be put in place to investigate a judge against whom there is an impeachment motion in the legislature.

This is the prevailing law, and arguing that it is unsatisfactory is as bad as saying that democracy is a bad form of government, as by and large, the will of the majority prevails.

It is a fact that judges are impeached by Select Committee in the United States of America for instance -- or at least a Select Committee’s legislative equivalent. This fact has been highlighted in the editorial spaces of this newspaper previously, and this writer shall not repeat the details.

The current civil society brouhaha about the Select Committee process is in spite of this fact.

This is further indication that the substance of the issue is irrelevant to the people who make the protests today, that they did not make a few years ago. It is basically a mercenary cold calculations that prevails.

It is popular to go against the government of the day, and the government of the day was protecting the Chief Justice of the time, which is why civil society sought to impeach him then despite the inconvenient constitutional stipulations. Today, the government party in the main wants to question the integrity of the Chief Justice through a process of impeachment hearings, and it is again the popular thing to go against the government of the day.

Agitation based politics brings in the buckshee to enrich the coffers of these NGO mandarins.

Their calculations are with an eye on the bottom line - - and there are no considerations that are based upon substance. No one in civil society for instance has spoken about the genuine integrity issues that are very obvious form the impeachment papers in the legislature concerning the current Chief Justice. All they are concerned about is procedure --- and the supposed lack of it.

This is not bizarre, it is to be expected from the civil society lobby -- complete with our learned friends and all. They do not come with clean hands when they seek justice for the Chief Justice. That’s another story -- and it should be told soon, for anybody who doesn’t know it.