{"id":69883,"date":"2017-09-19T21:47:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T03:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=69883"},"modified":"2017-09-19T14:15:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T21:15:58","slug":"prisoners-docs-and-pundits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/09\/19\/prisoners-docs-and-pundits\/","title":{"rendered":"Prisoners, docs and pundits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

September 19, 2017, 8:39 pm<\/span>
\nSome UNP MPs have taken exception to the admission of former President\u2019s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga to the Welikada prison hospital after being sentenced to three years RI. They claim he has received preferential treatment. A senior prison doctor has been transferred by way of punishment for allegedly favouring him. One is intrigued by their brouhaha and line of reasoning.<\/p>\n

The UNP MPs\u2019 conclusion that Weeratunga should not be in prison hospital is based on the premises that politicians and other influential persons, remanded or sentenced to jail, get themselves admitted to prison hospital so that they don\u2019t have to languish in cells; Weeratunga has also been admitted to prison hospital and he is an influential person and, therefore, his admission to hospital is wrong. But, their contention does not stand to reason. Here is a case of hasty generalisation, a fallacy which negates the logical validity of their argument. If their contention is true then one can claim that any person wearing a full-face helmet should be suspected of a bank robbery because all bank robbers wear full-face helmets.<\/p>\n

We hold no brief for anyone who has got into trouble by doing wily politicians\u2019 bidding. Weeratunga, with an impeccable track record as a civil servant, knows FRs by heart and he should not have carried out the controversial executive order to allocate public funds for distributing sil redi in the run-up to a crucial election. But, the fact remains that he has not been in the best of health for the last several years. He has also undergone surgeries on a couple of occasions. The rude shock he received upon being sentenced to three years RI may have aggravated his condition. If the government had had any reason to believe that his condition was not so serious as to warrant hospitalisation and\/or the prison doctors had been partial to him, it could have got him examined by some other physicians instead of getting the likes of Ranjan Ramanayake to protest, calling for the transfer of the acting chief medical officer of the Welikada prison hospital.<\/p>\n

No minister should be allowed to have doctors transferred to please some of his parliamentary colleagues or according to his whims and fancies. Disciplinary action should be taken against doctors or other state employees, for that matter, only if they are found guilty of wrongdoing following impartial inquiries. No suspect should be considered guilty without a fair hearing in which his or her right to respond to allegations against him or her is guaranteed\u2014audi alteram partem. Regrettably, the yahapalana politicians are acting as cops, prosecutors, judges, jurors and jailers! They even summon the Attorney General and tear into him for not preferring charges against their political rivals.<\/p>\n

Now that two senior civil servants have been sent to jail over the controversial sil redi distribution, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, Ramanayake et al must campaign for bringing the racketeers who caused massive losses amounting to billions of rupees to the state and the workers\u2019 superannuation fund through bond scams. They are intelligent enough to know that billions are bigger than millions, aren\u2019t they? If they think they can divert people\u2019s attention away from the biggest ever financial crime in the country by clamouring about Weeratunga in prison hospital, they are mistaken. In politics, Ramanayake tries to be the hero he plays in some third-rate, low-budget flicks, where he destroys the evil with a quick flick of the wrist. He is also a self-appointed campaigner against corruption and runs around like a headless chicken, cursing public servants and insulting judges. But, strangely, he baulks at calling for action against bond racketeers!<\/p>\n

Let it be stressed that the bad practice of politicians et al in good health being admitted to prison hospitals or the National Hospital after being remanded or sentenced must be brought to an end. A permanent mechanism needs to be put in place to find out malingerers in prisons. Political pundits full of themselves should not be allowed to take it upon themselves to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island September 19, 2017, 8:39 pm Some UNP MPs have taken exception to the admission of former President\u2019s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga to the Welikada prison hospital after being sentenced to three years RI. They claim he has received preferential treatment. A senior prison doctor has been transferred by way of punishment for allegedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69883","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=69883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}