{"id":95090,"date":"2019-11-11T16:32:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T23:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95090"},"modified":"2019-11-11T16:32:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T23:32:11","slug":"a-mockery-of-justice-the-latest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/11\/a-mockery-of-justice-the-latest\/","title":{"rendered":"A mockery of justice \u2013 the latest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janaka Perera<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

We again had the misfortune witnessed a mockery of justice when President Maithripala Sirisena pardoned Jude Samantha Jayamaha sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Swedish teenager Yvonne Johnson at the Royal Park luxury apartment complex in Colombo in July 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, this pardoning has sparked outrage among all law-abiding citizens. They would have not objected if the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. \u00a0But to allow Jayamaha to walk out of prison is intolerable, to say the least.\u00a0 Is this a twisted view of human rights? Or is it because the convict is from a high-profile wealthy family?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis the latest in four such unjustifiable Presidential pardons within a period\nof four decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the murder trial, the court was told that the skull of the victim – who was strangled to death \u2013 was fractured into 64 pieces. Jayamaha should have been kept in prison at least till he reached old age if not a life term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas President Jayawardene who set a dangerous precedent by releasing convicted\nrapist and underworld thug Gonawala Sunil. He was even made a JP.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thereafter\nPresident Premadasa pardoned Manohari Daniels jailed for killing dozens of\ncivilians by exploding a car bomb in 1987.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nJuly 2009 Mary Juliet Monica Fernando sentenced to death (later commuted to\nlife imprisonment) in 2005 for a double murder, walked away to freedom after\nbeing pardoned by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on International Women\u2019s Day! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juliet\nFernando was the wife of former SLFP Minister Milroy Fernando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nthis selective \u2018compassion\u2019? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are\nnot there other heartless murderers like Jude Samantha still in the death row?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only convicts who may deserve pardon are those who have killed in self-defense or under sudden provocation in justifiable circumstances or caused death unintentionally (including negligence). These usually fall into the legal category of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pardoning\nany convict or not should be decided not by a President but by a review board,\ndepending on the nature of each case.  It should be a legal process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nhope the next President will give serious thought to this.  If not\ncriminals who deserve no leniency will walk away scot-free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janaka Perera We again had the misfortune witnessed a mockery of justice when President Maithripala Sirisena pardoned Jude Samantha Jayamaha sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Swedish teenager Yvonne Johnson at the Royal Park luxury apartment complex in Colombo in July 2005. Needless to say, this pardoning has sparked outrage among all law-abiding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-janaka-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95090","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=95090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}