{"id":58607,"date":"2012-11-03T20:33:08","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T20:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=58607"},"modified":"2012-11-13T09:44:10","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T09:44:10","slug":"constitution-impeached","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/constitution-impeached\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitution Impeached!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

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

It is now official.\u00a0 The Executive-Judicial clash is heading towards denouement and one that is not hard to call.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get to that later.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Neville Samarakoon<\/a><\/span> escaped the ignominy of impeachment by resigning.\u00a0 Chief Justice Sarath N Silva<\/a><\/span> was spared by the Parliament being prorogued first and then dissolved.\u00a0 In the case of the former, the Executive had sway over the necessary numbers in Parliament.\u00a0 In the case of the latter, the mover, Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/a><\/span> didn\u2019t have the numbers and didn\u2019t have the support of the Executive, Chandrika Kumaratunga<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 When Silva ruled to snub Kumaratunga, she couldn\u2019t think impeachment because she didn\u2019t have impeaching numbers.\u00a0 Today it is Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake<\/a><\/span> who is in the dock.\u00a0\u00a0 In a context where regime popularity is hinged on the popularity of the President and therefore the political fortunes of ruling party MPs are tied to him remaining in power, the Executive has a vice like grip on the legislative branch.\u00a0 The Executive, moreover, has the numbers that neither Wickremesinghe nor Kumaratunga had.\u00a0 As such, things look bleak for the Chief Justice.<\/p>\n

There are howls of protests of course, but not all the protestors have moral right on their side.\u00a0 Silva himself had his ups and downs as well as his sideways ways including encroachment on executive territory.\u00a0 Among those who object to the current moves against the Chief Justice are those who sought to bring down Silva but forgave and forgot the moment Silva fell out with the Executive following the classic \u2018my enemy\u2019s enemy is my friend\u2019 formula.<\/p>\n

Many who are shedding tears for the Chief Justice today, howled in protest when she was first appointed to the Supreme Court.\u00a0 \u2018Political appointee!\u2019 was the scream back then.\u00a0 Morality was cited by the objectors who pointed out that the lady\u2019s husband was a high ranking government servant.\u00a0 They later even salivated when her husband, who was Chairman of the National Savings Bank, was implicated in a 390 million rupee deal in the stock market.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the current investigation of the husband, following the much publicized Executive-Judicial spat and the subsequent impeachment move, says a lot about selectivity and even revenge-intent.\u00a0\u00a0 The message that is not spelled out but is nevertheless clear is, \u2018We can just get along, but if we can\u2019t, there\u2019ll be arm-twisting, and if that doesn\u2019t work, well, we have the numbers and the law\u2019.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t make it morally right though.\u00a0 It is morally wrong to subject the Chief Justice to a witch hunt, for that is what is has amounted to.\u00a0 It may be legal, but still the use of available mechanism to get rid of her without any mention of \u2018reason\u2019 or transgression on her part, makes a bad, bad, bad precedent.\u00a0 The howlers don\u2019t have the moral authority either, given their flip-flopping nature on issues of this kind and the fact that they\u2019ve been consistently motivated by matters of political expediency and not issues of legality and morality.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If indeed, as alleged, the Chief Justice is inept or guilty of wrongdoing, the process that seated her in that august office must be flawed.\u00a0 If unseating is simply a matter of leveraging numerical edge, that too indicates mechanism-flaw.<\/p>\n

Perhaps these developments, in the end, serve only to strip the 1978 Constitution to its iron-like bones, demonstrating that for all the sway and punch of the judicial and legislative arms, the executive can be too a heavy a weight to budge.\u00a0\u00a0 It boils down to presidential discretion and that shows constitutional error and poverty.\u00a0 We can curse the Second Republican Constitution and its architects.\u00a0 We can find the gripe of its never-envisaged victims (the UNP) amusing.\u00a0 None of this requires us to cheer the current and principal beneficiary.
\nSimply, the constitution and by extension, its props and beneficiaries stand impeached.Morally.<\/p>\n

*The Nation editorial – Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation<\/a>\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a>\u00a0.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related posts;<\/p>\n

Not Only The Chairman Husband; Chief Justice Wife Must Also Resign!<\/a>\u00a0by Uvindu Kurukulasuriya<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Justice Or Her Husband Must Resign<\/a>\u00a0by Uvindu Kurukalsuriya\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":44732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[5962,6031,6020,6123,6991,2591],"class_list":["post-58607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","tag-impeaching-the-chief-justice-of-sri-lanka","tag-impeachment-against-shirani-bandaranayake","tag-impeachment-motion-against-chief-justice-shirani-bandaranayake","tag-malinda-seneviratne-on-cj-impeachment","tag-pradeep-kariyawasam","tag-shirani-bandaranayakes-husband-pradeep-kariyawasam-update"],"yoast_head":"\nConstitution Impeached! - 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\/constitution-impeached\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Constitution Impeached! 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