SC AND THE PSC - THE BOTTOM
LINE
Some NGO whiners and other fellow travellers seem to have got
some sea legs after the Supreme Court came out with a ruling to
the effect that Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) proceedings
on the impeachment of the Chief Justice are 'not valid.' Under
the circumstances that the Speaker of the Parliament has stated
that such notices are null and void, these sea legs will not
take these people anywhere really -- not any further than their
voices will carry.
To be charitable, the Supreme Court judgment is tortured -
that's with the stress on the word charitable! It is in total,
flagrant denial of the fact that the relevant constitutional
clause {107(3)} states explicitly that the procedure to
investigate misbehaviour charges against a judge is either by
process determined by law, or by Standing Orders.
Under these circumstances, if the Legislature once upon a
time stood by the Anura Bandaranaike ruling and ignored the
Supreme Court ruling passing a writ over it, it is more than
certain that the Legislature's disdain on this present ruling
will be doubly dismissive. That is rightly so, as no branch of
the State has the right to arrogate to itself, powers that it
does not possess.
Moreover, there is solid precedent to this matter in the form
of the said Bandaranaike ruling anyway, so there is certainly no
issue here in terms of the strict legality of the Legislature's
position. It is however, important that the country moves on
from this situation of some sort of temporary discomfort
prevailing between the Legislative branch and the Judicial
branch, and builds on this palpable achievement of keeping the
integrity of the judiciary intact, despite all of these recent
NGO funded shenanigans that worked towards keeping the Judiciary
corrupt and manipulated.
There is no doubt that this beating back of an extraneous
threat to the country, is comparable with vanquishing the Tamil
Tigers. If there was anybody that thought that there would not
be war by other means after the Prabhakaran led Tamil Tigers
were laid low at the banks of the Nandikadal, such a person
would have been in some sort of surreal world of make believe.
A Supreme Court that lacked the required component of
integrity, would have been an institution akin to a cancerous
tumour in the body politic. The repercussions of such a threat
would have been enormous.
Insidiously, the Judicial branch would have acquired the
power to chip away at the gains that were made as a result of
the rout of the LTTE.
The Divi Neguma Bill was but one indication only. It was
delivered despite the fact that there had been an explicit
judgment by Justice Mark Fernando that the Chief Justice Shirani
Bandaranayake should not hear cases that deal with the issue of
devolution of power.
There is no further need for explanation really. There cannot
be two or three centres of executive or legislative power in a
country. Certainly, the Divi Neguma decision is not progressive
judicial activism by any stretch -- this clear usurpation of the
role of the Legislature, by sections of the Judicial branch.
So certainly the issue seems to be far more complex than what
those such as S L Gunasekera would probably imagine in their
naivete, that nobody could pull the wool over their eyes - the
same S L Gunasekera who is a devoted non-devolutionist who would
not hear of a 'political solution' let alone devolution as a
political panacea!
Constitutional niceties and other niceties in the end all
boil down to the level of the irrelevant, when taken in relation
to the fact that in the end all this is about a power issue. The
anti national NGO led forces seek to make subtle inroads through
what they argue are constitutional means, into the territory of
governance. Surely, S L Gunasekera even in his monumental
naivety would have heard of constitutional coups. Of course S L
G is not the point here - it is just that it is funny almost,
that a man who on the one hand sees a threat to the country by
the Tiger rump and associated external threats, does not have
the grey cells to get his head round the elementary nexus
between the current power grab through the Judicial branch, and
the protection of the Sri Lankan-ness that he so professes to
cherish. Fortunately, many others are not unwitting cat's paws
the way he is, and they understand the issue with reference to
all its bearings and ramifications. |