(This is an adapted version of the Bishop Cyril Abeynaike Memorial Lecture delivered on 14 June 2025 at the invitation of the Cathedral Institute for Education and Formation, Colombo, Sri Lanka.)

In 1977, addressing the Colombo Diocesan Council, Bishop Abeynaike made the following observation:

‘The World in which we live today is a sick and hungry world. Torture, terrorism, persecution seem to be accepted as part of our situation…We do not have to be very perceptive in Sri Lanka to see that the foundations of our national life are showing signs of disintegration…While some are concerned about these things, many more are mere observers…A kind of despair seeps into us like a dark mist. Who am I to carry any influence, anyway? (The Colombo Diocesan Council Address by the Rt Revd C L Abeynaike at the Diocesan Council 1977, ‘What the World Expects’ Ceylon Churchman (January/February 1978) 11.)

Nearly five decades later, it feels like not much has changed, in the world or in how we perceive our helplessness in relation to our public life. Many of us saw the crisis of 2022 in Sri Lanka as a crisis of political representation. We felt that our elected representatives were not only failing to act in our interests but were, quite boldly, abusing their office to serve their own interests. While that was certainly one reason for that crisis, it was not the only one. Along with each elected representative who may have abused their power, there were also a number of other public officials who either enabled it or failed to prevent that abuse of power. For whatever reasons, such public officials – whether in public administration, procurement or law and order – acted in ways which led to our loss of trust in public office. When we look further, we can also see that systems of education, religious institutions and cultural practices nurtured and enabled public officials to act in ways that caused this loss of public trust. We often doubt whether this system can be salvaged. However, speaking in 1977, Bishop Abeynaike reminds us that these are challenges that we ought to face collectively, and I quote again:

‘But the longest journey begins with the first step. In politics, as in religion, faith without works is dead. We are caught up with unifying faces that create proximity and with divisive faces that disrupt community. We have to discover how to build community in proximity.’ (The Colombo Diocesan Council Address by the Rt Revd C L Abeynaike at the Diocesan Council 1977, ‘What the World Expects’ Ceylon Churchman (January/February 1978) 11-12)

In my view, that task of building ‘community in proximity’ includes reviving and strengthening our public discourse about public office that focuses on securing public trust. This is why I proposed to provide a Christian perspective on Securing Public Trust in Public Office for this year’s Abeynaike memorial lecture. In the next 50 minutes, I will suggest to you that public officials ought to nurture and cultivate five attributes: truthfulness, rationality, conviction, critical introspection and compassion. To illustrate the scope of these five attributes, I have chosen four examples. Let me present them to you now and as I present the five attributes, I will selectively refer back to these examples.

Example 01 : In 2002, in Kandy, a group of persons threw acid at Audit Superintendent Lalith Ambanwela. The reason for this attack was Ambanwela’s disclosure of a fraud of Rs 17.5 million in purchasing computers for the Central Province Dept. of Education in 2002 (Daily Mirror 25 May 2021). This acid attack caused Ambanwela grave and life-threatening harm. Unusual for cases of this nature, the accused were tried and convicted by the Kandy High Court. Referring to this judgement, Ambanwela said, and I quote, ‘This is a good judgment given on behalf of the future of the country. This is not my personal victory. It is a victory gained by government servants on behalf of good governance’(Judgement promoting good governance, TISL, 25 October, 2012). In 2004, the Sri Lanka chapter of Transparency International awarded Mr Ambanwela the National Integrity Award.

Example 02 : In 2014, South Africa’s Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, published a report titled ‘Secure in Comfort’ (Report No 25 of 23/24, March 19, 2014). This was a report that concluded that the then President of South Africa had, among other things, enriched himself and his family by excessive spending to improve his private family home – purportedly to improve security. The President rejected the report and refused to comply with the decision that the misused public funds should be paid back. Over the next two years this battle for accountability continued. As Thuli Madonsela ended her term in October 2016, she finalised and fought to release another report, titled ‘State of Capture’ (Report No: 6 of 206/17). This report documented entrenched corruption involving a leading business family and President Zuma in which the public protector recommended a judicial inquiry commission. By early 2018, President Zuma resigned under threat of facing a no-confidence motion in Parliament, primarily over these two matters.

Example 03 : William Wilberforce was a British politician who lived in 18th century England. He was a member of the British Parliament, a leading figure in the Anit-Slavery movement of that time and, relevant for this lecture, a Christian. His first unsuccessful attempt at proposing the adoption of a law to prohibit the slave trade was in 1789. Since then, he failed 11 times in trying to bring about this law and eventually, 15 years later, he succeeded on the 12th occasion, in 1807. He then went on to push for the abolition of slavery itself but retired from politics in 1825. In 1833, 44 years since he began his anti-slavery work in Parliament and three days before his death, slavery was abolished in the United Kingdom (Slavery Abolition Act 1833).

Example 04 : In April 2022, Sri Lanka declared its first ever default from sovereign debt repayment. This default was a result of a worsening balance of trade over decades and due to a series of political and expert decisions that led Sri Lanka into a debt. As we all know, this was a time when the people mobilised peacefully, reacting to the systematic institutional failures and demanding a ‘system change’, particularly, but not limited to, a change in a system of governance headed by an Executive President. Much has been said about the events of 2022, but for the purposes of today’s talk, I would like to recall the several failures on the part of public officials, including of our elected representatives, that led us to this crisis point. People died, while waiting in queue, to pay and obtain fuel or gas. Such was the extent of that tragedy. Today, much of the cost of the mismanagement, negligence, abuse of power and recovery are borne by you and me, including for example the losses incurred by SriLankan Airlines.

Before I use these examples to present the five attributes of public office, permit me to explain what I mean by public office, the idea of securing public trust and describe what I understand to be a Christian perspective on both.

Public Office

We often associate elected representatives, or public servants, with the term public office. But I will use this term in a broader sense today. For the purposes of today’s talk, I include within the idea any office that requires the person holding that office to exercise power or authority under public law. This description would cover members of Parliament, the President, members of the Judiciary, the police and public servants. In the Sri Lankan context, it would also include university academics and members of what we commonly describe as independent commissions such as the Human Rights Commission and the Election Commission.

When we consider all these personnel at this general level, we must bear in mind that different limitations and protections apply to different types of public officials. For instance, the role of judges is unique and comes with extensive limitations and protections in contrast with the role of an elected representative. Members of the judiciary are diligently required to avoid not only actual conflicts of interests but also perceived conflicts of interest and, therefore, are often very selective in their public engagements unlike legislators. University academics enjoy academic freedom, a freedom not available to public servants. Doctors in the public health system enjoy professional discretion while members of the police are subject to a unique form of order and discipline. Broadly speaking, different types of public officials play a unique and essential role in sustaining our collective life which is why public trust on public officials assumes great significance.

Public Trust

Public trust is a concept that I have worked with for about 15 years in relation to public law in Sri Lanka. (The basic idea here is that anyone who exercises public power ought to exercise that power only for the benefit of the People. The ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ is a public law concept that seeks to enforce this idea in the law. In several jurisdictions in the world, the Public Trust Doctrine has been invoked by judges to recognise rights of the natural environment or rights to the natural environment and a corresponding duty on the state to respect such rights. In Sri Lanka, however, the public trust doctrine has been developed much more broadly by judges to review the exercise of executive discretion and to decide whether such discretion has been exercised for the benefit of the people or not. Examples of executive discretion would include the discretion that lies with the Executive President to grant a pardon to a convict, the discretion that lies with the Governor and Monetary Board of Sri Lanka to determine Sri Lanka’s monetary policy and the discretion that lies with the Cabinet of Ministers to manage state assets. Over the last three decades, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has developed the public trust doctrine to recognise that the exercise of public power must be reasonable, that it cannot be arbitrary and that it must only be for the benefit of the people. I draw from this idea of the public trust doctrine to ask a more ethical question as to what can be done to secure public trust, by public officials.

A Christian Perspective

How do we identify a Christian perspective on securing public trust? There are at least two approaches: one is the evangelical approach where we draw from the life of Jesus, and the second is the broader Anglican approach which combines the first, with the teachings of the Church as well. Of course, Christ did not exercise public power nor did he hold public office. But through his ministry and the Bible more generally, we learn about the Kingdom of God – its purpose and its value commitments. The calling for Christians is to internalise and practice the values of the Kingdom of God in all we do, including in our public lives and to offer that perspective to the rest of the world. For this talk, therefore, I derive my Christian perspective from the Bible, the teachings of the Church and through that from our collective understanding of the Kingdom of God. It is important to bear in mind that much of what we draw from our faith may resonate with the other faiths that are practiced in Sri Lankan society or may be explained in secular terms too.

I now turn to the main task I have set up for myself today – which is to try to interpret what a Christian perspective may have to offer in securing public trust in public office. I present my ideas through five attributes: 1) truthfulness, 2) rationality, 3) conviction 4) critical introspection and 5) compassion. I chose these attributes drawing on my study of the deficit of public trust in our public officials here in Sri Lanka but also from my own experiences.

· Truthfulness

Of the five attributes that I present to you today, truthfulness might be the one that is most familiar to us. Truthfulness is a common demand placed on us by most religions and can have an internal and an external dimension.

What do the scriptures have to offer us in this regard? Consider the example of Jesus in relation to the adulterous woman in the Gospel of John 8: 1-9. In that account, Jesus had significant power to influence how the religious establishment and the broader public would react to her and indeed, determine how she should be punished for being adulterous. In that moment, rather than exercise a harsh power of judgement, Jesus intentionally chose to take the path of truthfulness. The truthfulness that he exercised there had an internal or personal dimension as well as an external and structural dimension to it. At the internal or personal level, through his act, he demanded that those who sought to punish this woman, be truthful about their own conduct. But in doing so, he truthfully drew attention to the religious and cultural structures of that society which sought to selectively penalise and condemn women. The woman did not get a free pass either. Jesus asked her too, to be truthful and leave her life of sin.

A helpful contemporary challenge that we can apply these principles to would be the responsibilities of public officials to be truthful about practices such as corruption, ragging or sexual harassment internal to our public institutions. What does it mean, for a public official, to be truthful in the face of these deeply problematic and entrenched injustices within our public institutions and in the way in which these public institutions offer their services to society? In the context of holding public office, being truthful about these issues is often inconvenient, uncomfortable and has too many implications for the status quo. Being truthful often requires too much work. It causes persons who hold public office to become unpopular, disliked, be made of targets for retaliation and in some instances to even have to risk losing their jobs. It is useful to recall here that speaking the truth about himself, that is his claim to be the Messiah, led Jesus ultimately to his crucifixion.

Speaking truth to power is equally difficult and often can attract serious risks. In his brief public life of three years, Jesus did not hold back from speaking truth to power. One of my personal favourites is his description of the Pharisees as graves painted in white (Matthew 23:27). For public officers, speaking truth to power may entail calling out the abuse of power, refusing to engage in or endorse illegal actions and being willing to take action against wrongdoing.

Recall here my first example of the acid attack against Lalith Ambanwela. He nearly paid for his truthfulness with his life, is reported to have lost sight in one eye and his face was permanently disfigured. Why then, should public officials be truthful and in what ways would it help to secure public trust? From a Christian perspective, there are two ways to justify the attribute of truthfulness. First, it is an attribute that we practice for its intrinsic value. As Christians, we believe that the God of the Bible is true and practices truthfulness and requires the same of those who follow him. Followers of Christ are required to be lovers and seekers of the truth. The second reason is consequentialist. The Christian perspective requires that we are truthful because the absence of truth is a lie, an injustice and God abhors the lie as well as injustice. (To be continued)

By Dinesha Samararatne
Professor, Dept of Public & International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and independent member, Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka (January 2023 to January 2026)