A welcome gavel blow

Friday 13th January, 2023

Yesterday’s Supreme Court (SC) judgement by a seven-member bench, in a high-profile fundamental rights violation case against former President Maithripala Sirisena and four others for their failure to prevent the Easter Sunday attacks (2019), has infused the hapless people with some hope and optimism. It will serve to reinforce public trust in the judicial process.

Sirisena has been ordered to pay Rs. 100 million as compensation for his failure to prevent the Easter Sunday terror attacks in 2019, when he was the President, despite the availability of prior information about the bombings. Former IGP Pujith Jayasundera and ex-Director of State Intelligence Service Nilantha Jayawardena have been ordered to pay Rs. 75 each as compensation. Ex-Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former head of the National Intelligence Sisira Mendis have been ordered to pay compensation to the tune of Rs. 50 mn and 10 mn, respectively. Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was the Prime Minister at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, is lucky that proceedings against him had to be terminated due to his presidential immunity, but he should be mindful of the fact that Sirisena has had to pay for dereliction of duty after ceasing to be the President. Presidential immunity does not last forever!

Jayasundera became the IGP because the Yahapalana regime favoured him, and the Constitutional Council, which was full of pro-government members, cosigned its decision, and drew criticism for doing so. He must be ruing the day he accepted that post. Fernando should have known better than to be the Defence Secretary under President Sirisena, who was anything but serious about governing the country properly, and messed up national security big time. Sirisena even invited some of his hangers-on to the National Security Council meetings and prevented Prime Minister Wickremesinghe from attending them.

The welcome gavel blow has come amidst speculation that SDIG Jayawardena is going to be appointed the next IGP. The SC has ordered that disciplinary action be taken against him, according to media reports. This could be considered a judicial slap across the face of the government, which has been trying to promote him as the IGP. Odds are that Jayawardena will not be able to realise his IGP dream. It behoves other police officers to sit up and take notice. They had better perform their duties and functions diligently and refrain from carrying out illegal orders.

Now that Sirisena has been made to pay for failing to carry out his presidential duties and functions properly and thereby violating the fundamental rights of some people, the question is why similar treatment should not be meted out to those who ignored the Central Bank warnings of an economic meltdown, bankrupted the country, creating conditions that have caused people to undergo immense suffering and even die, in come cases due to severe shortages of life-saving medicines, adversely impacted children’s education, and reduced countless citizens to penury besides ruining the country’s image internationally. They must not be allowed to get away with their economic crimes. Some of these characters are now all out to deprive the people of their right to vote!

Interestingly, Jayasundera and Fernando were acquitted by the Colombo High court, early last year, as the prosecution could not prove criminal charges against them. However, the need for criminal proceedings to be instituted against all those who failed to carry out their duties and functions and ignored warnings of terrorist attacks thereby causing about 270 lives to be lost, cannot be overstated.

The recommendations of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which probed the Easter Sunday tragedy must be implemented fully. That is the way to ensure that the current leaders and defence bigwigs, and their successors, will be on their toes, and, most of all, national security will not be compromised.