Editorial

Contempt then and now

Published

5 years ago

2021/01/17

Dr. Asanga Welikala, legal academic and constitutional lawyer, has gone on record saying that while imprisonment over contempt of court is legal, it is increasingly seen as inappropriate and disproportionate. This observation has been made in the context of the jailing last week of Parliamentarian and film star Ranjan Ramanayake to four years rigorous imprisonment on contempt charges. Thanks to television, the country was able to see the actor, screaming and shouting that he had neither robbed, killed nor engaged in drug trafficking and will not apologize, being dragged into a prison vehicle to be taken away to serve his term. He was clearly playing to the cameras as he would have on a film set and put up quite a show.

Readers would remember the highly respected Prof. Carlo Fonseka, Ramanayake’s uncle, accompanying him to court every day at the early stages of the trial which began three years ago. This was before the late professor, frail even then, was physically unable to go to court. This case, as most of them do, dragged on for a long time as is common, or even inevitable, in this country. Most people know that contempt of court is a serious offence and refrain from trifling with the judicial system for fear of punishment. While the courts are not infallible, as demonstrated by higher courts sometimes overturning judgments from lower down, there is no bar on the criticism of judicial decisions. But this must be done, as the text books say, in “chaste language” without scandalizing the court.

It was decades ago that Mr. Herbert Hulugalle, then editor of the “Ceylon Daily News,” was convicted of a contempt offence by a three judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Sir. Sydney Abrahams, then Chief Justice, who later became a Privy Councillor. On the bench with the British CJ were two Ceylonese judges, Justice Akbar and Justice Koch. A fine of thousand rupees – not chicken feed at that time – and imprisonment till the rising of court was imposed on the editor over an editorial titled “Justice on Holiday” which Hulugalle did not write. But as editor, he had to take responsibility for what appeared in his paper. The editorial was written at the instance of D.R. Wijewardene, the legendary Lake House founder. Hulugalle, himself an advocate, sat with the lawyers in the courtroom after his conviction and spent the lunch adjournment with his friend, the Registrar of the court, in the latter’s chambers. Sir Sydney, ostensibly for Hulugalle’s benefit, adjourned court for the day earlier than usual. Wijewardene, no doubt at great expense, took the case right up to the Privy Council in a vain attempt to overturn the judgment.

More recently, Editor Fred Silva, also of the “Daily News” was imprisoned for six months for a newspaper column titled “Dress Sense” that appeared in his paper. This was a comment on different requirements of different courts on how persons appearing before them should be clad – a jacket and tie or national dress as the case may be. It was said there that while one court upbraided someone wearing trousers and an open neck shirt for not appearing in what we Lankans are fond of calling a “full suit,” a witness in another court was giving evidence neatly clad in a white shirt and pair of trousers. Although Silva was convicted and served his sentence, a reporter (subsequently editor) present in the courtroom said he clearly heard Justice Jaya Pathirana telling his brother judges “let him go” over the court public address system.

It was only a few months ago that Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, the leader of the Bodu Bala Sena, was convicted of what appeared to be a blatant act of contempt by making a fiery speech in a courtroom at Homagama where a case in which he was interested was being heard. The complainant in this matter was the judge himself. The monk was convicted on several counts preferred against him and sentenced to six years in jail. But he was pardoned by President Sirisena after serving a fraction of his sentence and subsequently ran for Parliament. Although there was a report that Ramanayake, speaking on the telephone to UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe after his conviction had said that he would seek a pardon, this was said to be “in lighter vein”. Given the hellholes that our prisons are, whether ‘One Shot’ as the MP was styled in one of his movies, will ask for a pardon remains to be seen. He will continue to be an MP for six months after which his seat will be vacated. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, under whose Samagi Jana Balavegaya ticket Ramanayake returned to parliament for his second term, said last week that “we will stand by him;” but what that means in practical terms is not clear. Whether the actor is made of similar stuff as General (now Field Marshal) Sarath Fonseka, who steadfastly refused to seek a pardon but soldiered through a part of his prison term until he was granted an unasked pardon, is debatable. Ramanayake stands to be disqualified from standing for election for seven years if he serves four years in jail. That can end his political career.

All things are impermanent as the Buddha said. How this particular drama will pan out remains to be seen.

All News Advertisement

Editorial

Govt. provoking TUs

Published

33 mins ago

2026/01/31

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 31st Junuary, 2026

The government has ignored the ultimatum given by the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA). Its intransigence will only drive the protesting doctors to intensify their trade union action, causing more suffering to patients.

The government has launched a propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against the GMOA by claiming that the doctors are demanding pay hikes with no heed for the economic difficulties caused by Cyclone Ditwah. It has stretched the truth to bolster its claims, suppressing the fact that the protesting doctors have softened their stand and expressed their willingness to give up their trade union action if the government addresses the issues the resolution of which does not cost the state coffers anything. According to media reports, their demands include the establishment of a special service minute for doctors, enhancing the disturbance, availability, and transport allowance, converting the extra duty allowance into a fixed one, and the implementation of a written agreement with the Health Minister on resolving issues regarding a research allowance and transport.

What the government should do to prevent disruptions to the health sector is to bring the GMOA to the negotiating table forthwith and work out a compromise formula. But it has succumbed to the arrogance of power, which drives strong governments to bulldoze their way through. Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has told the doctors that it’s his way or the highway.

The government is apparently cherishing the delusion that since it has a steamroller majority in Parliament, it can do as it pleases, and others have to obey its dictates. Let it be warned that it is inviting trouble. Mandates come with short lifespans, and hubris and downfall are neighbours. Its efforts to neutralise the GMOA have galvanised other health sector trade unions into joining forces; they know that if the government succeeds in flooring the GMOA, so to speak, they will have no chance whatsoever of winning their demands. It is popularly said in this country that “one who lays one’s hands on the gourd does not spare the pumpkin”. In fact, that seems to be the government’s strategy. It is dealing with protesting trade unions in such a way as to deter others from launching labour struggles. It has chosen to ignore a hunger strike by the Development Officers (DOs), attached to the state-run schools; they demanding that they be absorbed into the teacher service. The protesters campaigned hard for the JVP/NPP in the 2024 elections, expecting their fair demand to be met. These graduates have worked as teachers for about seven years, and there is no reason why the government cannot appoint them as teachers; they can be further trained, if need be, after being appointed as teachers. The DOs have received the typical karapincha (curry leaves) treatment from the government they helped elect—they have been used and discarded. The government has shown a callous disregard for not only their career prospects but also their dear lives. The DOs were informed yesterday evening that they could meet President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Tuesday (03 Feb). But NPP MP Chandna Sooriyaarachchi revealed to the media yesterday that all arrangements had been made for a competitive examination to be held soon!

The GMOA used to give short shrift to other health sector trade unions, and go to the extent of being critical of their labour struggles. It was labouring under the misconception that the state health institutions could operate without other categories of workers. They even sought to establish what may be described as a health sector trade union hierarchy modelled on the four-varna caste system, and place themselves at the top. Now, they have realised the need to cooperate with other trade unions instead of confronting them.

If the health sector trade unions close ranks, they will stand a better chance of winning their demands, and labour unions in other sectors will follow suit to boost their bargaining power. The government continues to provide its political opponents and trade unions with rallying points. Governments intoxicated with power think no end of themselves and behave like aggressive drunkards in shebeens only to receive sobering knocks in elections.

Editorial

Listen to workers

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/30

Thilina Walpola

Friday 30th January, 2026

Time was when governments inveighed against the JVP for instigating strikes in vital sectors to further its political interests. Today, a JVP-led government is accusing its political rivals of manipulating trade unions to advance their political agendas on the pretext of championing workers’ rights. Following the 2024 regime change, it was widely thought that the country would at last be free from strikes as the JVP, the main instigator of strikes, had gained state power. During the initial phase of the JVP-NPP rule, all was quiet on the trade union front, but labour disputes began to manifest themselves thereafter.

Development Officers (DOs), attached to the state-run schools, have been protesting near the Presidential Secretariat, Colombo, for four days, demanding that they be absorbed into the teacher service without being made to sit a competitive examination. Some of them were on a hunger strike at the time of writing, claiming that the government had denied them an opportunity to be heard.

The NPP administration is thought to be in a straitjacket where state sector recruitment is concerned. It has to curtail government expenditure in keeping with the IMF bailout conditions. But pressure is mounting on it to fulfil its pledges to the unemployed graduates and the DOs, who campaigned hard for the JVP/NPP in the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections. In 2024, a few weeks after forming a government, the NPP had a DOs’ protest near the Education Ministry in Battaramulla dispersed by the police!

The state service, bursting at the seams, has become a main source of employment for ruling party supporters over the past several decades. Sri Lanka currently has about 1.5 million public sector employees, with the workforce having doubled over the past one and a half decades. Although there is one public official for every 14 citizens, the efficiency of the state service remains extremely low. Only the UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004) sought to address this issue and curtailed state sector recruitments. But the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga sacked that government, and the SLFP-led UPFA, which came to power by winning the 2004 general election, upended the UNF’s recruitment policy and resumed making political appointments in the state sector.

By some quirk of fate, the JVP, which pressured all previous governments to employ graduates in the state sector, is now under fire for not recruiting some graduates as teachers.

Opinion may be divided on the protesting DOs’ demand at issue. But it defies comprehension why the government wants them to sit a competitive examination, for they have worked as teachers for years. They have had hands-on experience in schools, and the question is why they are not appointed as teachers straightaway.

The government, which claims to espouse Marxism, ought to talk to protesters and strikers instead of trying to intimidate them into submission. Let it be repeated that in the past, the JVP was behind almost all strikes, demanding solutions to workers’ problems. Unfortunately, it is now riding roughshod over trade unions and workers. It is playing a game of chicken with the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), and the protesting doctors have given Minister of Health Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa 48 hours to address their problems or face the consequences. It is hoped that he will invite the doctors on the warpath to the negotiating table and try to avert a health sector strike.

There is no way hospitals can function during a doctors’ strike, and it will be a mistake for the government to wait, expecting the GMOA to blink first. It must get protesters, including doctors and the DOs around the table, and have a serious discussion on the unresolved issues that have driven them to resort to trade union action.

Editorial

Prelates’ wise counsel

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 29th January, 2026

Four Mahanayake Theras have made an intervention, albeit with delay, to reorient government policy towards commonsense and good governance. They have raised concerns about the prolonged delay in appointing the Auditor General. In a letter to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, they have warned that the continued absence of an Auditor General has created space for various groups to question the state’s financial oversight and fuel debate over public financial management.

Noting that selecting an external officer for a post so central to public audit and oversight could detract from the integrity of the office, the Prelates have voiced support for Dharmapala Gammanpila, a senior official with extensive experience in the National Audit Office, as the most suitable candidate for the post of Auditor General.

The post of Auditor General has remained vacant since the retirement of the former incumbent in April 2025, and three nominations submitted by the President were rejected by the Constitutional Council (CC)––and rightly so. The government is trying to parachute an outsider into the Auditor General’s post to safeguard its interests.

Supermajorities make governments impervious to reason and blind them to reality. Feeding politicians’ autocratic tendencies that are a threat to democracy, steamroller majorities drive governments to embark on risky missions and launch mega projects to boost their leaders’ egos. An SLFP-led government weakened the economy with a disastrous experiment with autarky in the 1970s. A UNP government, elected in 1977, went to the other extreme, ruining profitable state enterprises and institutionalising election malpractices, political violence and corruption. Another SLFP-led government launched a grandiose infrastructure development drive and spent borrowed money on some Ozymandian projects, which have become white elephants. An SLPP administration introduced an ill-planned organic farming drive. The incumbent government has undertaken to reform the education system hastily.

The Dissanayake government is bent on reducing every vital state institution to a mere appendage of the JVP in a bid to perpetuate its hold on power. The Police Department has already become a pliable tool of the JVP. The CID is now a part of the JVP in all but name; it is doing political work for the government. It arrests, harasses and casts aspersions on the political rivals of the government in the name of investigations. Whenever the government paints itself into a corner, the CID makes some high-profile arrests to divert attention. The ruling party propagandists have launched a vilification campaign against the Attorney General, with the JVP/NPP supporters holding protests and calling for his ouster, as part of a government strategy to render the state prosecutor malleable so that the JVP/NPP can have its rivals arrested and prosecuted according to its whims and fancies.

The powerful message in the Mahanayake Theras’ letter to President Dissanayake has resonated with the public, who cherish democracy and good governance. It is being argued in some quarters that going by what Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa said about the prelates’ letter, at this week’s post-Cabinet media briefing, the government is likely to go ahead with its plan to appoint an outsider as Auditor General, paying no heed to the Mahanayake Theras’ concerns.

The JVP/NPP is not alone in ignoring the Mahanayake Theras’ concerns and advice. In December 2011, the Mahanayake Theras of the Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters of Siam Nikaya, the Ramanna Nikaya and the Amarapura Nikaya, intervened to resolve a dispute in the UNP. They wrote to UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, urging him to appoint Karu Jayasuriya as UNP leader, and thereby help strengthen the Opposition. Their letter went unheeded. One of the allegations the JVP and other Opposition parties levelled against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2014 was that his sons had held a car race in Kandy, ignoring the Mahanayake Thera’s concerns and protests.

It will be interesting to see whether President Dissanayake considers the prelates’ wise counsel seriously and abandons his efforts to politicise the National Audit Office.