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How did we become a lawless State?

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3 years ago

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Talk given by Rajan Hoole at the release of the book, Democracy Stillborn, at Trimmer Hall, Jaffna, on 11 Nov., 2022. The fellow speakers were Devanesan Nesiah, Ahilan Kadirgamar, Swasthika Arulingam and Kirupaimalar Hoole. The meeting was chaired by Mahendran Thiruvarangan

First, a message from K. Sritharan, who was with Rajani Thiranagama and Rajan Hoole in the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna).

“The rule of law is in decline and has provoked much discussion, even in developed countries, where it has been the norm for over a hundred years. The West, which continually championed democracy and the rule of law itself, is facing a major crisis as populist right-wing politics make inroads into the mainstream. In the US, the legitimacy of institutions, which are crucial for accountability and the rule of law, are questioned, and conspiracy theories of utter distrust of authority become the fare among the masses. This crisis can lead to many upheavals.  We may eventually overcome and stabilize with more meaningful and broadened democratic formations. But the path towards that may not be smooth and the trend shows the moral high ground is ill-defined.

But, as an island nation, we have gone through major crisis after crisis and in the process have ruined and bankrupted our country. Many youths are now looking for the root causes for this plight. Our modern history is one of cohabitation with dominant colonial powers. During the British period, a cause of major social transformation was the colonial state formation. The vested interest of the British Colonial project, brought in institutional mechanisms and nurtured a political class to manage them.  The question is how the ruling elite of Ceylon used those institutions. In the balance, was it to enhance the interest of the people, or in pursuit of their short-term interests? Did their hold on power unleash forces which, of their own nature, created a series of fault lines by a perversion of nation building? In addressing these, we need to charter a new path. Of course, this cannot be done in isolation but it is necessary to identify the internal developments, and form broad solidarities that would get us out of this impasse.” End of message.

About Social Democracy

Arunachalam, was the first civil servant who radically stood for social democracy. He wanted the British officers, responsible for excesses during the Sinhalese-Muslim riots of 1915, punished, according to the law. In 1920, the British authorities, supported by Sinhalese nationalists, undermined the man hitherto deemed indispensable, and put him out to grass. Provoked by the economic collapse of 201, the Aragalaya protesters realised the state of acute lawlessness and got rid of the President and Prime Minister. We have Mahinda Rajapaksa finally admitting his mistakes, all implicitly permitted under the Constitution, and pleaded for another chance. Mahinda Rajapaksa comes in a line of leaders charged with murder, not only of journalists but also of war crimes and robbery. There were, of course, two parties to the war. But the Government’s intransigence made it intractable.

The law was simple, but we have muddled and obscured it. Had we followed it, we could have avoided this present impasse. Article 29 of the Constitution of 1948 had the provision, not to ‘Make persons of any community, or religion, liable to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other communities or religions are not made liable …’ Quite simply it means treat everyone equally. The Government, being in a minority after the 1947 elections, used threat and bribery to disqualify Plantation Tamils from citizenship. What we may forget today is the Sinhalese opposition, left and liberal, for example H. Sri Nissanka, were united and firm in standing by the Plantation Tamils.

Britain’s gift to the Sinhalese leaders of cancelling the 1941 elections, gave them an eight-year free ride of power without an electoral mandate from 1940, during which time they were allowed to colour the future constitution. It led to indifference and apathy among opponents of the Citizenship Bill. Neither the Government nor the Supreme Court offered a cogent reason for the disenfranchisement of estate workers. The Supreme Court held that since Article 29 had no reference to race, taking away the franchise of a community was not a violation of Article 29, it was administrative. The Government was nervous when the Plantation Tamils appealed to the Privy Council.

The Privy Council first retreated because Parliament by defining citizenship indirectly by ancestry, had evaded the principle of equality in 29 (2). It however passed the Bill misquoting the Soulbury report which actually made clear that over 80 percent of Plantation Tamils were in 1941 either born in Ceylon or had resided over 10 years.

Lanka is a beneficiary of common laws, the Roman-Dutch and English. Good common law whatever its origins is transposable. Lanka learnt nothing from them. Answering the challenge to the Citizenship Act in 1951, Chief Justice Edward Jayatileke rejected equality and ruled that whatever Parliament passes has to be obeyed. However, Chief Justice Abrahams replying to DSG Wijewardene asserting Parliament’s supremacy in 1937 said, that a new law must accord with those that preceded it ‘so that there be no repugnance but a concordancy in all the parts thereof.’

Bills against the Plantation Tamils

We had Roman-Dutch law and English common law, both of which with different emphases, stood for common right. Both sets of law rejected the Citizenship and Franchise Acts from several angles. Having accepted the Donoughmore Bill in 1929 which promised the vote to everyone, we had 19 wasted years, no industrialisation, but demolish the voting rights of the Plantation Tamils. Nihal Jayawickrema gave a potent reason for treating the term community in the citizenship acts with respect: ‘Parliament must not discriminate against a particular community already resident in the country.’

We had in 1937 Chief Justice Abrahams upholding Habeas Corpus, no detention without the order of a judge, and freed Bracegirdle from deportation. The reversal, to detain without warrant, was legislated in the 1947 Public Security Ordinance, the last Bill passed under colonial rule. These were signposts on our march to independence and beyond.

Emergency permitted murder in ‘good faith.’ Although a British precedent was claimed for the Bill, in Britain actions under emergency became judicable once the emergency was lifted. The real fear in Ceylon was strike action by the combined unions over the Citizenship Bill of 1948. However, strike action was deterred by the ‘smash up’ of the 1947 general strike.

Ceylon Constitution and the

Citizenship Bill

Britain co-drafted a very fragile constitution to gain the Sinhalese leaders’ support during the Second World War. They cancelled State Council elections due in early 1941, jailed the Left and as pointed out, allowed Senanayake to rule eight years without a mandate prior to independence and determine the colour of the Judiciary. During this period. Left leaders N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena, then vocal advocates of the Indian Tamil equality, were cast into prison. Just before, the State Council in 1941 passed the Registration Bill, the precursor of the Citizenship Act of 1948. All Sinhalese, barring the imprisoned Left, voted for the Registration Bill. It required all qualifying as Ceylonese to have domicile of origin – produce father’s birth certificate – it was impossible for many in Ceylon, be it Sinhalese or Tamil, but Plantation Tamils were singled out for exclusion!

Carrot and stick on minorities to betray a fellow minority

The Muslims and Tamils were goaded to support the Citizenship Bill. Most of the Tamil elite, including prominent Youth Congress veterans, wanted the Tamils to support Senanayake. Out of 13 Ceylon Tamil MPs, a minuscule group of two opposed the Bill, S. Chelvanayakam and K.V. Nadarajah. Ponnambalam, however, voted against to avoid a split in the Congress, the remaining five MPs were absent on his instruction. The two Senators E. Naganathan and S. Nadesan, too, opposed the Bill, tooth and nail. For the Tamil minority it was suicide. Had it shown greater conviction the Muslims and the six government appointed members need not have supported the Citizenship Bill.

What we are left with is the Pollution of Administration of Justice by ignoring the principle of legality. The principle states that when we legislate to the hurt of a minority, it should be stated in clear unambiguous terms, acknowledging the political cost. This was never done in Lanka, although the cost was heavy. The new politics was exemplified in arm-twisting T.B. Jayah, champion of the underdog, to join the Government. But is that a way to build up a united nation?

In the 1950s any bill passed by a simple majority and signed by the Speaker was accepted as law, ignoring the two-thirds majority requirement for bills that violated the Constitution. Thus, Sinhala Only became law with 66 voting for and 29 against, short of a two-thirds majority. No one challenged it in court until Ranasinghe in the early 1960s, over something unconnected, the Bribery Tribunals Act. The Privy Council ruled that the Act required a two-thirds majority the Government did not show, and ruled in favour of Ranasinghe.

Giving judgment on 5th May 1964 for Ranasinghe’s case, nine days after de Kretser’s ruling Sinhala Only unconstitutional in the Colombo District Court as violating Article 29 (2), Lord Pearce reaffirmed the long ignored ‘fundamental conditions,’ or equality, stressing Article 29. By this time the SLFP-Left coalition and the UNP wanted the Privy Council and the Soulbury Constitution out. The mutual embarrassment had become heavy. This was accomplished in the new 1972 constitution, ridding our final toehold on the rule of law.

By the time Lord Pearce ruled for a correction in 1964, the Left and the Sinhalese right had rejected reform. The tested and potent Magna Carta right of detention only on the sufferance of a Judge was gone in 1947 and reaffirmed in the 1972 ‘progressive’ constitution. The erosion of law made communal violence, the worst manifestation of barbarity, to savage and kill an innocent person on the basis of race, acceptable. The State failed to punish and the Sinhalese were apologetic in a half-hearted way – Sinhalese they said protected Tamils.

An uneasy calm prevailed until 1977. The Muslims regarded themselves fairly safe while Jayewardene opened all stops of the 1972 Constitution. As for the criminal intent of our laws, Dr. Rajasundaram, like many Tamils, approved of the militancy only for a defensive purpose, against state-initiated attacks on civilians. The Sansoni Commission report gives several examples of such in 1977. Having committed himself to rehabilitate Tamil refugees, Rajasundaram had to face the violence of the State. What he did was far from terrorism.

He was detained under the PTA on the gossipy charge of trying to make peace between Maheswaran and Santhathiyar. When the tortured victim was produced in court, Judge Bandaranayake, instead of discharging him, announced an indefinite postponement of the hearing. Six days later he was killed in the infamous Welikade Prison massacre on 25th July 1983. While proof will never be found, it is quite certain that the massacre was organised by the Kelaniya mafia, still a major force in government, the seed planted by the PSO. This was about the time the Government viciously accused the JVP of responsibility for July 1983 and forced it underground, just when it democratically contested the Government’s foul play over the 1982 referendum. The damage was far worse than recent scams that provoked protests.

The Tamils professing to fight for liberation were also infected with the vulgar legalism inherited from the State – its constant demand for proof over complaints about missing persons. In Jaffna, the university students spontaneously went on strike in 1986 charging the LTTE with the disappearance of student Vijitharan. The LTTE leader Kittu came to discuss matters in the University of Jaffna common room. When confronted with the allegation, he responded, “Where is the proof?”

The Government tried tactical evasion by introducing a Bureau of Rehabilitation law that was disallowed by the Supreme Court on 20th October 2022. The state of our laws flows directly from the Citizenship Act. No Government has tried to put us right. All worked in the same culture to our detriment. The Language issue is but a by-product of the Citizenship Act.


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Features

Ranking public services with AI — A roadmap to reviving institutions like SriLankan Airlines

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19 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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Efficacy measures an organisation’s capacity to achieve its mission and intended outcomes under planned or optimal conditions. It differs from efficiency, which focuses on achieving objectives with minimal resources, and effectiveness, which evaluates results in real-world conditions. Today, modern AI tools, using publicly available data, enable objective assessment of the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s government institutions.

Among key public bodies, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka emerges as the most efficacious, outperforming the Department of Inland Revenue, Sri Lanka Customs, the Election Commission, and Parliament. In the financial and regulatory sector, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) ranks highest, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Among state-owned enterprises, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) leads in efficacy, followed by Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank. Other institutions assessed included the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and the Sri Lanka Transport Board. At the lower end of the spectrum were Lanka Sathosa and Sri Lankan Airlines, highlighting a critical challenge for the national economy.

Sri Lankan Airlines, consistently ranked at the bottom, has long been a financial drain. Despite successive governments’ reform attempts, sustainable solutions remain elusive.

Globally, the most profitable airlines operate as highly integrated, technology-enabled ecosystems rather than as fragmented departments. Operations, finance, fleet management, route planning, engineering, marketing, and customer service are closely coordinated, sharing real-time data to maximise efficiency, safety, and profitability.

The challenge for Sri Lankan Airlines is structural. Its operations are fragmented, overly hierarchical, and poorly aligned. Simply replacing the CEO or senior leadership will not address these deep-seated weaknesses. What the airline needs is a cohesive, integrated organisational ecosystem that leverages technology for cross-functional planning and real-time decision-making.

The government must urgently consider restructuring Sri Lankan Airlines to encourage:

=Joint planning across operational divisions

=Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making

=Continuous cross-functional consultation

=Collaborative strategic decisions on route rationalisation, fleet renewal, partnerships, and cost management, rather than exclusive top-down mandates

Sustainable reform requires systemic change. Without modernised organisational structures, stronger accountability, and aligned incentives across divisions, financial recovery will remain out of reach. An integrated, performance-oriented model offers the most realistic path to operational efficiency and long-term viability.

Reforming loss-making institutions like Sri Lankan Airlines is not merely a matter of leadership change — it is a structural overhaul essential to ensuring these entities contribute productively to the national economy rather than remain perpetual burdens.

By Chula Goonasekera – Citizen Analyst

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Features

Why Pi Day?

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19 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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International Day of Mathematics falls tomorrow

The approximate value of Pi (π) is 3.14 in mathematics. Therefore, the day 14 March is celebrated as the Pi Day. In 2019, UNESCO proclaimed 14 March as the International Day of Mathematics.

Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians figured out that the circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times its diameter. But they could not come up with an exact value for this ratio although they knew that it is a constant. This constant was later named as π which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.

Archimedes

It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes (250 BC) who was able to find an upper bound and a lower bound for this constant. He drew a circle of diameter one unit and drew hexagons inside and outside the circle such that the sides of each hexagon touch the sides of the circle. In mathematics the circle passing through all vertices of a polygon is called a ‘circumcircle’ and the largest circle that fits inside a polygon tangent to all its sides is called an ‘incircle’. The total length of the smaller hexagon then becomes the lower bound of π and the length of the hexagon outside the circle is the upper bound. He realised that by increasing the number of sides of the polygon can make the bounds get closer to the value of Pi and increased the number of sides to 12,24,48 and 60. He argued that by increasing the number of sides will ultimately result in obtaining the original circle, thereby laying the foundation for the theory of limits. He ended up with the lower bound as 22/7 and the upper bound 223/71. He could not continue his research as his hometown Syracuse was invaded by Romans and was killed by one of the soldiers. His last words were ‘do not disturb my circles’, perhaps a reference to his continuing efforts to find the value of π to a greater accuracy.

Archimedes can be considered as the father of geometry. His contributions revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus. He invented the pulley and the hydraulic screw for drawing water from a well. He also discovered the law of hydrostatics. He formulated the law of levers which states that a smaller weight placed farther from a pivot can balance a much heavier weight closer to it. He famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the earth”.

Mathematicians have found many expressions for π as a sum of infinite series that converge to its value. One such famous series is the Leibniz Series found in 1674 by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, which is given below.

π = 4 ( 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – ………….)

The Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan came up with a magnificent formula in 1910. The short form of the formula is as follows.

π = 9801/(1103 √8)

For practical applications an approximation is sufficient. Even NASA uses only the approximation 3.141592653589793 for its interplanetary navigation calculations.

It is not just an interesting and curious number. It is used for calculations in navigation, encryption, space exploration, video game development and even in medicine. As π is fundamental to spherical geometry, it is at the heart of positioning systems in GPS navigations. It also contributes significantly to cybersecurity. As it is an irrational number it is an excellent foundation for generating randomness required in encryption and securing communications. In the medical field, it helps to calculate blood flow rates and pressure differentials. In diagnostic tools such as CT scans and MRI, pi is an important component in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques.

This elegant, never-ending number demonstrates how mathematics transforms into practical applications that shape our world. The possibilities of what it can do are infinite as the number itself. It has become a symbol of beauty and complexity in mathematics. “It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.” said Sophie Germain.

Mathematics fans are intrigued by this irrational number and attempt to calculate it as far as they can. In March 2022, Emma Haruka Iwao of Japan calculated it to 100 trillion decimal places in Google Cloud. It had taken 157 days. The Guinness World Record for reciting the number from memory is held by Rajveer Meena of India for 70000 decimal places over 10 hours.

Happy Pi Day!

The author is a senior examiner of the International Baccalaureate in the UK and an educational consultant at the Overseas School of Colombo.

by R N A de Silva

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Features

Sheer rise of Realpolitik making the world see the brink

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2 days ago

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2026/03/12

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A combined US-Israel attack on Iran.(BBC)

The recent humanly costly torpedoing of an Iranian naval vessel in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone by a US submarine has raised a number of issues of great importance to international political discourse and law that call for elucidation. It is best that enlightened commentary is brought to bear in such discussions because at present misleading and uninformed speculation on questions arising from the incident are being aired by particularly jingoistic politicians of Sri Lanka’s South which could prove deleterious.

As matters stand, there seems to be no credible evidence that the Indian state was aware of the impending torpedoing of the Iranian vessel but these acerbic-tongued politicians of Sri Lanka’s South would have the local public believe that the tragedy was triggered with India’s connivance. Likewise, India is accused of ‘embroiling’ Sri Lanka in the incident on account of seemingly having prior knowledge of it and not warning Sri Lanka about the impending disaster.

It is plain that a process is once again afoot to raise anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. An obligation is cast on the Sri Lankan government to ensure that incendiary speculation of the above kind is defeated and India-Sri Lanka relations are prevented from being in any way harmed. Proactive measures are needed by the Sri Lankan government and well meaning quarters to ensure that public discourse in such matters have a factual and rational basis. ‘Knowledge gaps’ could prove hazardous.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt that Sri Lanka’s sovereignty was violated by the US because the sinking of the Iranian vessel took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While there is no international decrying of the incident, and this is to be regretted, Sri Lanka’s helplessness and small player status would enable the US to ‘get away with it’.

Could anything be done by the international community to hold the US to account over the act of lawlessness in question? None is the answer at present. This is because in the current ‘Global Disorder’ major powers could commit the gravest international irregularities with impunity. As the threadbare cliché declares, ‘Might is Right’….. or so it seems.

Unfortunately, the UN could only merely verbally denounce any violations of International Law by the world’s foremost powers. It cannot use countervailing force against violators of the law, for example, on account of the divided nature of the UN Security Council, whose permanent members have shown incapability of seeing eye-to-eye on grave matters relating to International Law and order over the decades.

The foregoing considerations could force the conclusion on uncritical sections that Political Realism or Realpolitik has won out in the end. A basic premise of the school of thought known as Political Realism is that power or force wielded by states and international actors determine the shape, direction and substance of international relations. This school stands in marked contrast to political idealists who essentially proclaim that moral norms and values determine the nature of local and international politics.

While, British political scientist Thomas Hobbes, for instance, was a proponent of Political Realism, political idealism has its roots in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and latterly Friedrich Hegel of Germany, to name just few such notables.

On the face of it, therefore, there is no getting way from the conclusion that coercive force is the deciding factor in international politics. If this were not so, US President Donald Trump in collaboration with Israeli Rightist Premier Benjamin Natanyahu could not have wielded the ‘big stick’, so to speak, on Iran, killed its Supreme Head of State, terrorized the Iranian public and gone ‘scot-free’. That is, currently, the US’ impunity seems to be limitless.

Moreover, the evidence is that the Western bloc is reuniting in the face of Iran’s threats to stymie the flow of oil from West Asia to the rest of the world. The recent G7 summit witnessed a coming together of the foremost powers of the global North to ensure that the West does not suffer grave negative consequences from any future blocking of western oil supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel is having a ‘free run’ of the Middle East, so to speak, picking out perceived adversarial powers, such as Lebanon, and militarily neutralizing them; once again with impunity. On the other hand, Iran has been bringing under assault, with no questions asked, Gulf states that are seen as allying with the US and Israel. West Asia is facing a compounded crisis and International Law seems to be helplessly silent.

Wittingly or unwittingly, matters at the heart of International Law and peace are being obfuscated by some pro-Trump administration commentators meanwhile. For example, retired US Navy Captain Brent Sadler has cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for the right to self or collective self-defence of UN member states in the face of armed attacks, as justifying the US sinking of the Iranian vessel (See page 2 of The Island of March 10, 2026). But the Article makes it clear that such measures could be resorted to by UN members only ‘ if an armed attack occurs’ against them and under no other circumstances. But no such thing happened in the incident in question and the US acted under a sheer threat perception.

Clearly, the US has violated the Article through its action and has once again demonstrated its tendency to arbitrarily use military might. The general drift of Sadler’s thinking is that in the face of pressing national priorities, obligations of a state under International Law could be side-stepped. This is a sure recipe for international anarchy because in such a policy environment states could pursue their national interests, irrespective of their merits, disregarding in the process their obligations towards the international community.

Moreover, Article 51 repeatedly reiterates the authority of the UN Security Council and the obligation of those states that act in self-defence to report to the Council and be guided by it. Sadler, therefore, could be said to have cited the Article very selectively, whereas, right along member states’ commitments to the UNSC are stressed.

However, it is beyond doubt that international anarchy has strengthened its grip over the world. While the US set destabilizing precedents after the crumbling of the Cold War that paved the way for the current anarchic situation, Russia further aggravated these degenerative trends through its invasion of Ukraine. Stepping back from anarchy has thus emerged as the prime challenge for the world community.

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