A widely welcomed judgment

The reverberations of Thursday’s unanimous judgment of a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court will long be felt in this country where politicians, whatever crimes they have committed against the people, are permitted to get off Scott free and enjoy lifelong pensions and other privileges to boot from the tax exchequer. As The Island rightly said in its Friday editorial, a much-needed gavel blow has been struck on the rulers of this country. Among them are former President Maithripala Sirisena, then in office both as head of state and head of government, and tellingly as defence minister when the terrifying Easter attack of 2019 struck this country with the intensity of a lightening bolt. Its impact which is still being felt will continue to be felt for a long time as far as the country is concerned and lifelong by the loved ones of the dead and the crippled.

It is not only Sirisena who continues in politics as a Member of Parliament and the leader of the SLFP, who is implicated. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president today has no adverse finding against him for the reason he now enjoys presidential immunity. He was originally a respondent in a clutch of about a dozen petitions filed by various people and groups including the bereaved and the injured, the Bar Association, the Catholic community and sundry others, but the court held that proceedings cannot lie against him due to the constitutional immunity offered to an incumbent president. But this, it must be remembered, is not for all time. The man in the street must be forgiven for asking why only fines, hefty as they sound from what we have known in the past, have been imposed without any accompanying terms of imprisonment. The reason for that is that these were Fundamental Rights actions establishing civil liability. However, if the fines are not paid in a given period contempt of court procedures will lie. And who can forget that MP Ranjan Ramanayake served such a term not long ago.

Apart from Sirisena, who has long been pleading innocent, but found few believers, many senior police officers including the then Inspector General and the cream of the intelligence establishment have been deemed culpable by the judgment and heavily penalized. A front page news photograph of a tearful father who lost his children saying after the judgment was delivered: “However much money is paid, I’ll never get my children back.” He could well have been speaking for over 300 families who lost loved ones killed or maimed. Across all bias and political divisions, the vast majority of the people of this country, and indeed the wider world, will welcome the judgment from which there is no appeal. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s spectacular November 2019 election victory was widely attributed to the Easter bombing aftershock and the abject failure of Yahhapalana to prevent the horror despite what has now been established to be reliable intelligence. But scant attention was paid to it then and death and destruction of horrific proportions followed.

Maithripala Sirisena became president of this country thanks to the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe. But their honeymoon was all too brief and by October 2018 he unsuccessfully attempted a constitutional coup by appointing Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister. But he was forced to eat humble pie by a Supreme Court judgment and Wickremesinghe and his government were reinstated. Although we Lankans are widely perceived to have very short memories, especially about the many acts of commission and omission of our leaders – many of them of unforgivable proportions – people do remember that Sirisena’s cold war against Wickremesinghe before the Easter horror included keeping him out of National Security Council meetings. Whether such attendance would have made a difference we will never know. But the judgment has exposed the rank incompetence of the intelligence establishment. There was a lot of finger-pointing in the many affidavits filed for the purposes of the case. But whether the necessary course correction will be implemented remains a question that is wide open.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised to do just that. But all he succeeded in doing was plunging the country to bankruptcy and placing unbearable burdens on the back of the people, all the people and not only just those who voted for him. We must also not forget that this is not the first or only time a president has been found culpable and fined by a superior court. That honour belongs to Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who in 2008 was fined three million rupees in the Waters Edge case. Justice Shiranee Tilakawardene held that CBK “failed to function in a manner consistent with the expectations of a public officer, much less an executive president, and in doing so, ad completely betrayed the trust bestowed on her by the people of Sri Lanka.” A crony, Ronnie Peiris, said to have made Rs. 57 million on the deal was ordered to pay a two million rupee fine. Although the judgment ordered that the flood retention area in the site be restored and the complex be utilized for public offices, a posh hotel continues to be run there. Not much different from the Lake House takeover presented as broad basing ownership.

Nobody enjoyed Ranil Wickremesinghe’s home being torched last year. But he as president was able to move into the palatial mansion that Sirisena built for himself; and got a cabinet decision that he should continue to occupy it at the end of his presidency. But this was challenged and he was made to move out. But a final determination as not yet been made. While we are on the subject let us suggest that the lavish retirement benefits of past presidents and even MPs be brought down even belatedly to realistic proportions.