{"id":41453,"date":"2015-02-11T22:28:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41453"},"modified":"2015-02-11T15:27:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T22:27:19","slug":"good-governance-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/11\/good-governance-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Good governance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

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Ven. Omalpe Sobitha, Leader of Sihala Urumaya,HAS recently proclaimed that if no action is taken to arrest and try the politicians and others responsible for stealing from the public purse within the 100 days, then, the Sihala Urumaya would have no alternative but to leave the government and campaign for such actions outside to bring these culprits to book. Nimal Siripala de Silva, Leader of the Oppositionsaid that the SLFP will not hesitate,to prevent nominations being given to those who are found guilty of any wrongdoings. He is not only an astute politician but also a very clever lawyer. When the SLFP was comprehensively defeated by JRJ and Mrs. Bandaranaike lost her civic rights, it was he who stood firmly behind Mrs. Bandaranaike and won her confidence and took upon himself the responsibility of fighting many cases that were filed by JRJ against the SLFP hierarchy. When Nimal Siripala de Silva made this statementsome people including the proposal of “Yahapalanaya”, or “Good Governance”, would have applauded Nimal Siripala for the stand he has taken.<\/p>\n

But, Nimal Siripala de Silva, being the crafty politician that he is, knew that not in this country or anywhere else would a court, be able to convict or acquit a person within 100 days. This is common to all democracies. Even in China, where the Government executed more than 100 people for corruption, the trial took more than 100 days.<\/p>\n

Ven. Omalpe Sobitha would certainly be disappointed if he expected to arrest and punish the corrupt within 100 days.<\/p>\n

Every day, in the social media, there are many allegations of corruption. Special investigative units will have to be set up these allegations and those who have information about corruption ought to come forward in the national interest. To prove these charges in a court of Law, you have to have witnesses and documents which may have been destroyed and to find copies thereof will be an up-hill task. Once the evidence is collected and statements recorded it is prudent to take the advice of the Attorney General. As I know, the AG\u2019s Department is one that is overburdened with work.<\/p>\n

This government came to power with a solid assurance to the voter that it would usher in good governance. The last government found that people were yearning for swift justice. Therefore, whenever there was a heinous crime reported in the media. We were shown on television such heinous crimes and people demanded that the perpectrators be summarily done away with. The majority of people believed that the criminals had no right to justice, and theyshould be executed swiftly. What happened to “grease yakkas” is a case in point. Special teams were sent to Ratnapura to catch and destroy. The<\/p>\n

Media gave blood curdling accounts of gruesome crimes and hailed the police action. The Kahawatta manance was brought to end with the alleged perpetrators destroyed. The Mahinda Rajapaksa government decided to summarily do away with the Criminal Justice System and the police invented stories handcuffed murderer jumping into a river and committing suicide. Suspects were also taken to hidden weapon cashes suddenly and they would throw a hand grenade at the police and the police only to be shot dead. When these incidents were related by the Police Media Spokesman, no one ever protested and the middle class television viewers were extremely happy with the outcome. In fact, just before the elections the same Media Spokesman proudly proclaimed,”We have got rid of the underworld,” which was true. The members of the underworld were either protected by the politicians of the government or others were summarily executed.<\/p>\n

Everyone was happy including the police as they did not have to bother about giving evidence in Court. Even if the trial ends successfully and the criminal is given death sentence, they will be given a reprieve and come out of jail after 15 years. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka took strong exception to the manner in which police disposed of suspects but no one protested against this extra judicial executions. I did not hear even religious dignitaries utter a whimper against such brutal methods deployed by the previous regime. The suspicious manner in which Dodampe Mudalali died while he was being questioned by the CID on the 4th Floor, under a UNP government prompted the then the Opposition make a hue and cry about his death and that it was one of the reasons for the fall of the Dudley Senanayake Government. But today, no one except this writer and the Bar Association has taken up the number of killings carried out by the police, who acts as the Investigator, the Judge and the executions. It was a shame that most Magistrates would return a verdict of justifiable homicide,suicide or accident death, and condone murder This was something unthinkable about 25 years ago. The manner in which crimes were investigated and criminals were disposed of, became part of our Sinhala-Buddhist Culture.<\/p>\n

Today, Maithreepala Sirisena came to power to stop corruption and central and to usher in a new epoch of good governance,which consists in the authoritarian powers vested in the executive presidency upholding the rule of law. So every single crime committed by the previous regime must be carefully investigated and if the police and the AG\u2019s Department are of the view that there is prima facie case, the suspect should he be produced in Court. Only a competent judge can find the accused guilty<\/strong> I have\u00a0read that suggested that Special presidential commissions be established to try these offenders. I am appalled that those who came to power, promising governance, could even think that a Special Presidential Commission would bring the culprits to book. This monster was created by J. R.Jayewardena to disfranchise Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Chandrika Bandaranaike used her powers to have several Presidential Commissions, including investigations into the Batalanda torture chamber, the killing of Vijaya Kumaranathunga, the killing of Lalith Athulathmudali and Denzil Kobbekaduwa.<\/strong> As a lawyer who appeared before almost all the Commissions,I knew it was a politically motivated judicial circus its nadir, and the Supreme Court decided the evidence collected for a number of years by one of these Commissions was not sufficient even to hang a rat.<\/strong> I believe that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe will advise the President against the establishment of Special Presidential Commission, which would be tatamount to burying the Rule of Law and ushering in an era of \u2018Yakapalanaya\u2019,<\/i> instead of \u2018Yahapalanaya\u2019.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Courtesy Island Ven. Omalpe Sobitha, Leader of Sihala Urumaya,HAS recently proclaimed that if no action is taken to arrest and try the politicians and others responsible for stealing from the public purse within the 100 days, then, the Sihala Urumaya would have no alternative but to leave the government and campaign for such actions outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}