Biggest curse

Wednesday 6th December, 2023

Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe lashed out at SJB MP Rishad Bathiudeen, on Monday, for having cursed a judge while making a speech in Parliament recently. He dismissed as baseless Bathiudeen’s claim that the judge concerned heard only cases involving former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He is right in having taken up the cudgels for the rights of the judges whose reputations are dragged through the mud in Parliament.

Vitriolic attacks that some MPs carry out on judicial officers by taking cover behind their parliamentary privileges are deplorable; they adversely impact the relations between the legislature and the judiciary. The three branches of government—the legislature, the judiciary and the executive—are the political version of tridosha—va, pitta and kapha, and any imbalance thereof causes problems. Hence the need for the members of the three institutions to act responsibly, minding their limits and respecting each other’s independence. Unfortunately, instances abound where legislators try to undermine the independence of the judiciary and even slander judges.

A recent announcement President Ranil Wickremesinghe made in Parliament has come in for criticism. He said the next presidential and parliamentary polls would be held in 2024 and the local government and provincial council elections in 2025. That statement has come to be widely viewed as an attempt to influence the judiciary vis-à-vis an ongoing case pertaining to the delayed local government polls. It was also tantamount to a bid to undermine the authority of the Election Commission, which is the institution constitutionally empowered to make decisions anent elections. Why the Justice Minister, who cherishes judicial independence, did not take exception to that presidential announcement is the question.

Minister Rajapakshe told Bathiudeen, while upbraiding him, that nobody had cursed the latter for having been a minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. However, the public cursed the Rajapaksa regime for having the likes of Bathiudeen in its Cabinet, especially after a mob attack on the Mannar court complex in July 2012, and an allegation that Bathiudeen had threatened a Magistrate. The Rajapaksa government took on the judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission, whose Secretary Manjula Tilakaratne was assaulted by a group of unidentified men in Mount Lavinia in October 2012. A few months later, it appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe the then Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake and had her ‘impeached’ in January 2013. Thus, that government became a curse.

The current SLPP-UNP dispensation sought to summon some judges before the parliamentary Committee on Privileges and Ethics over a ruling which annoyed the powers that be. Thankfully, it got cold feet owing to protests. That abortive move however reminded us of how the J. R. Jayewardene government had two judges of the Supreme Court summoned before a PSC and reprimanded in 1983. The houses of some apex court judges were also stoned in that year because a judgement against the police in a fundamental rights violation case filed by a group of Opposition activists angered the UNP government. That regime also tried to impeach the then Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon for making a public speech which President Jayewardene did not take kindly to.

Interestingly, Bathiudeen has been in governments formed by the parties and leaders with a history of undermining judicial independence. (Ironically, the same holds true for Dr. Rajapakshe!) Bathiudeen was in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government as a Minister; he then switched his allegiance to President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and became a member of the Yahapalana Cabinet. Today, he is a coalition partner of the SJB, whose leaders were in the Yahapalana administration as members of the UNP-led UNF. President Sirisena, who leads the SLFP, ably assisted by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and some prominent members of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, removed a Chief Justice in a despicable manner. In 2015, he declared the appointment of Chief Justice Mohan Peiris, null and void ab initio on the grounds that the post of Chief Justice had not fallen vacant. True, the Rajapaksa government did not follow proper procedure in impeaching Dr. Bandaranayake and therefore she had to be reinstated, but the process that had led to her wrongful removal should have been reversed by the legislature itself.

Bathiudeen, no doubt, deserves the flak he is drawing for cursing a judge, but could there be a bigger curse for the judiciary as well as the country than an unholy alliance of political parties and leaders responsible for stoning the houses of judges, summoning judicial officers before parliamentary committees, and removing Chief Justices arbitrarily?