{"id":129957,"date":"2014-09-07T10:39:10","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T05:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=129957"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:50:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T05:20:04","slug":"thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit\/","title":{"rendered":"Thilini Versus Selva And The Justice-Deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Nimalka Fernando<\/span><\/a> asked an interesting question when Thilini was arrested by the Police.\u00a0 Thilini is the woman who responded to alleged lewd remarks by a person called Selva by slapping him repeatedly (all caught on camera).\u00a0 Nimalka asked if the police arrests all men who beat up women.<\/p>\n

Now a situation of domestic abuse is more complicated that an insulted woman turning around and slapping someone.\u00a0 The perpetrator and victim not just live under the same roof but are \u2018tied\u2019 by the fact that they are parents to the same children, have histories which in all likelihood contained happy and sweet moments and so on.\u00a0 The victims don\u2019t always go to the Police and the act of violence is hardly ever caught on camera.<\/p>\n

Nimalka\u2019s question points to certain skewed elements in gender-based violence, but nevertheless doesn\u2019t rise above cheap rhetoric.\u00a0 The equivalence implied remains at best dubious.\u00a0 \u00a0The Police cannot act unless there\u2019s complaint or else wrongdoing is apparent and warrants intervention.\u00a0 In this instance, this side of a case for self-defence, Thilini acted as judge and enforcer of judgment.\u00a0 That\u2019s wrong, it can be argued.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since it is all on camera, since the physical assault did not follow physical assault or drag the other protagonist into fisticuffs, there is a solid case for arrest.\u00a0 This of course does not mean Selva was innocent or that his remarks were \u2018okay\u2019.\u00a0 But that\u2019s a separate case; linked, but separate.<\/p>\n

\"Thilini\"<\/a>And yet, there\u2019s something in the question that Nimalka has posed that goes beyond incident, embraces the entire gamut of issues pertaining to gender-based violence and most pertinently (and disturbingly) the entire corpus of the law.<\/p>\n

First of all, inadequate social, cultural and legal safeguards have created so many gaps through which the likes of Selva (and worse) thrust their dirty hands to touch, grope and worse.\u00a0 The same loopholes are used to spout verbal abuse.\u00a0 Therefore, citing strict caveats such as \u2018evidence\u2019 and \u2018complaint\u2019 are inherently problematic.\u00a0 If the law is silent on other transgressions, if society in general is ready to look away when the Selvas can\u2019t keep hands and tongue under check, then society and the law cannot intervene in event of other transgressions.\u00a0 If \u2018evidence\u2019 and \u2018complaint\u2019 are what count, then what of tying people to trees (recorded and relayed on television), one might ask.<\/p>\n

These are all issues that are currently being widely debated in social media.\u00a0 Thilini is a hero to some while others feel Selva got a raw deal.\u00a0 \u2018Punishment should fit the crime,\u2019 some argue while others add \u2018Thilini took the law into her hands\u2019.\u00a0 Some are happy that the law is taking its course while others are livid that the victim was arrested.\u00a0 It is clear, though, that Thilini\u2019s response, as many argue, is larger than Thilini and Selva, a lewd remark and a perhaps over-zealous reaction.\u00a0 For every Thilini there are hundreds of thousands who have had to suffer in silence similar or worse acts of transgressions from hundreds and thousands of Selvas.\u00a0 Thilini\u2019s response, therefore, has to be read as a kind of \u2018this is it, we will not take this anymore\u2019 articulation, even if Thilini never once thought she was representing all the Thilinis who came before and who will come after the Wariyapola incident.<\/p>\n

The key word that is the crux of the larger problem is \u2018selectivity\u2019.\u00a0 The law is selective.\u00a0 The judicial process favors the powerful.\u00a0 Redress, often, hangs on affordability of skilled legal representation.\u00a0 The perpetrators are as protected by these realities as by convention, a manifest reluctance to object to transgressions by the general public and the helplessness of victims.\u00a0 It must be mentioned that if someone is seen picking a pocket, it is quite likely that someone would raise objection and that others would support the objector, but sexual harassment is largely responded to with silence and inaction which, we have to conclude, adds up to consent on the part of each and every witness.<\/p>\n

The incident has certainly served to bring up these issues for discussion in various forums, especially social media and that\u2019s a positive outcome.\u00a0 It has also provided project-starved NGO personalities and NGOs a lifeline is indicative of other social problems but that\u2019s another issue altogether.\u00a0 Nimalka\u2019s question is dodgy, speaking strictly in a legal context, but it does invite discussion on a range of issues pertaining to gender relations, sexual harassment, violence and most importantly the selectivity and therefore the loopholes inherent in the apparatus of justice in this country.<\/p>\n

In short, the Selvas of this country are not just using apathy and legal-lax to insult a woman but are abusing these very facilities to pick pockets, throw punches, cheat taxpayers and plunder state resources.\u00a0 In this context, i.e. where the law is made of holes, it is inevitable that there will be Thilinis.\u00a0 This time it was Selva.\u00a0 One man, one woman.\u00a0 If things don\u2019t change we will have an army of Thilinis taking on an army of Selvas and as things stand it is hard to say if that is necessarily an unhappy situation.\u00a0\u00a0 It is, sadly, about \u2018Law vs Justice\u2019, and that\u2019s typically an invitation to either revolution or anarchy.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThilini Versus Selva And The Justice-Deficit - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thilini Versus Selva And The Justice-Deficit - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-07T05:09:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-15T05:20:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/thilini-versus-selva-and-the-justice-deficit\/\",\"name\":\"Thilini Versus Selva And The Justice-Deficit - 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