SHIRANI BANDARANAYAKE
NOT SIRIMAVO BANDARANAIKE
The bane of Sri Lankan
government service seems to be that everybody wants to be a
politician. First it was an army commander. Now is it a Chief
Justice?
The apparent politicization of the impeachment issue has left
a bad taste in the mouth of the ringside citizenry who have been
privy to connected events, and perhaps those very far from the
action as well. But, the entire political and media
feeding-frenzy that is surrounding the impeachment, is in the
first instance, causing the devaluation of what is after all the
most sacrosanct public institution in the country -- the
Judiciary.
Well, at least it used to be. But it has come to such a pass,
that the people seem to be losing respect for the Judicial
institutions of this country by the minute, and this is why
there should be a serious reconsideration on the part of the
Chief Justice and her backers about the way they are setting
about the entire impeachment contretemps.
The summoning of the District Judges and the Magistrates by
the Chief Justice, was the apogee of the politicization of this
crisis. If anybody thinks it wasn't they should look at the
photograph published a few days back in a daily newspaper, which
was a clear depiction of a lady judge covering her face with a
saree pota in the manner of a convict, when she was leaving the
Supreme Court premises after attending the judges' meeting.
The judge concerned may have got her inspiration for this
singularly astounding act of concealment, from the remand
prisoners she convicts every now and then. A lot of them are
regularly seen covering their mugs on the way to the Black
Maria.
But a judge covering her face after meeting the Chief Justice
of the country in a closed doors meeting that is supposed to be
of some professional nature? Never heard of!
This is the extent to which the needless heedless
politicization of the impeachment issue has affected the
judiciary, plunging it into a tumultuous pass from which it
might never recover with its respect intact.
All this needless politicization seems to be with the Chief
Justice's active concurrence, if not entirely on her own
initiative. Her backers have decided to make some sort of
political capital out of a necessary investigation of
professional conduct. However, she is the first woman Chief
Justice of the country and not the first woman Prime Minister of
the world - - her name is Shirani Bandaranayake, not Sirimavo
Bandaranaike.
That being the case, why is she acting as if she is Sirimavo
Bandaranaike, hands clasped, and more or less in campaign mode
outside of the precincts of Hulftsdorp and Parliament? Her
backers may take up the position that she has a certain coterie
of supporters, and that perhaps she finds it hard to ignore them
- but this is neither true nor tenable because she is actively
feeding into this entire circus and media feeding frenzy that
surrounds the impeachment. When she organizes judges meetings
that are tantamount to a political campaign against her
impeachment -- she is doing nothing less than politicizing the
issue, and when she lends herself to various mini-dramas in the
Supreme Court premises or close to the Parliament, she is
playing a role that is emphatically political as opposed to
being independent or neutral, as judges are expected to be ---
no matter how dire their personal or professional circumstances.
Overtly political individuals backing her for their own
narrow partisan ends is to be expected, but her lending herself
to such shenanigans and advancing a thinly veiled political
agenda herself by politicizing the impeachment issue is
certainly backfiring as a strategy, and already the effect of
the boomerang can be felt in the shape of the public reaction
when she last appeared before the PSC.
Today, the Buddhist clergy and sections of the Bar have come
out strongly against what they feel is a delegitimizing of the
judiciary due to the highly visible politicized approach she had
taken towards the impeachment. They have asked her to resign.
This is what happens when a high ranking judicial officer who is
supposed to be neutral, starts playing an incongruous and absurd
political role. |