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Monday, 3 December 2012

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 MEETING AND ARM-TWISTING

This unbecoming campaign by the Judicial branch -- or certainly some sections of it --to force the hand of the Executive to de-accelerate the pace of integrity investigations of the Chief Justice, is now assuming manifestly absurd proportions.

Yesterday, the District Court Judges of the country were being summoned for a sudden meeting in Colombo this morning, reportedly to counter what were called ‘threats to the judiciary.’ We carry elsewhere, some of the reactions of the legal community to the effect that disruption of the work of the Judiciary in this way is unhealthy, uncalled for -- and in the final analysis, utterly condemnable.

The ethics of convening all District Judges when there is an impeachment motion tabled in Parliament, are -- to put it in the mildest of terms - - deplorable. Any state officer under investigation, say, on matters pertaining to interdiction, for example, will not carry out routine functions let alone convene extraordinary meetings, while investigative processes concerning him/her are underway.

The Chief Justice of the country seems to think nothing of doing the exact opposite in the equivalent situation however, and this casts a brand new integrity shadow over the conduct of the highest ranking judicial officer of this country. There is no urgency to call a meeting of District Judges island-wide, and as if short notice was not bad enough, there is a question mark over the meeting-agenda which has apparently been sketchily described as ‘countering threats to the judiciary.’

Any reasonable observer of events would not hesitate to conclude that what comes under the rubric of ‘threats to the judiciary’ when it comes from the party convening the said meeting, could only be issues that face the CJ in the current impeachment process now before Parliament.

That the smooth functioning of courts and the day-to-day courtroom cases of litigants have to be held in abeyance for a day, because the courtrooms get shut down when the ‘Boss calls a meeting in Colombo’, is almost too shocking to contemplate.

Unless the conveners of the meeting have a really good reason that they could put before the District Judges today, it would be extremely difficult to avoid the reasonable conclusion reached by people that the meeting was convened to eke out unfair advantage, therefore the action bordering on abuse of office if not constituting outright abuse of office, indisputably.

If the meeting is to stave off an inevitable resignation and execute a last minute rescue act of the embattled CJ by getting the District Judges to plead on the basis of ‘independence of the judiciary,’ that will be laughable. It is fervently hoped for the sake of everybody concerned that this is not the objective of the exercise, because if the District Judges are summoned to Colombo by their Head, and then told to say that she should stay in office, as otherwise the ‘judiciary is being threatened’, that would certainly be an example of undue influence for the history books.

The District Judges are captive in the present context; they are being summoned by their superiors and would for professional reasons be hard-put to go against any Resolution or any other document put before them for their assent.

On the other hand, if perchance it transpired that today’s meeting was to discuss ‘regular business’, that too casts a similarly damning integrity shadow over the conduct of the Chief Justice.

There can be nothing in the order of ‘ordinary business’ that can be presided over by the Chief Justice of this country, in the current circumstances, in which she is facing impeachment charges in the Legislature --- which to the reasonable eye appear to be of a rather serious nature. An ordinary civil servant under the circumstances would have faced suspension or an enforced leave of absence, and it is only the constitutional stipulations that stop the CJ from facing similar discomfiture.

Those who ostensibly having the interests of the Chief Justice at heart, are not doing themselves any favours by embarking on this attritional war with the Legislature and Executive, when the position of the Legislature on all of this has been made abundantly clear by now. Such precipitous action on the part of the Judicial branch, to say it with the least ado, is bound to fail for its short-sightedness.

‘Lankan illegals’ not refugees

With nearly 1.7 million Sri Lankans working abroad, and foreign employment impacting nearly 23 percent of our population, the migration discourse has long been of utmost importance to Sri Lanka. As Sri Lankans from even the remotest areas migrate for work abroad, their remittances have become a driving force on poverty alleviation and rural development.

Full Story

So, what can Provincial Councils really do?

One of the main problems we have had with regard to devolution is the failure of our law makers to draft legislation properly. The 13th Amendment is a case in point, since it is full of confusion about how power should be exercised. The most obvious example of this is in relation to what is termed the Concurrent List, where the Constitution says that, where there is conflict, the decision of the Central Government will prevail.

Full Story

INGO dollar operative at work again

Yet another dollar paid INGO operative is now writing adverse reports about Sri Lanka - -and mind you, while simultaneously working for the United States High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Full Story

 

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