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Sri Lankan politicians are notorious for carrying out personal attacks instead of countering arguments. So, the JVP-NPP government’s attack on the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (CLA) in Parliament on Tuesday (08) came as no surprise. The CLA, whose President Steven Thiru attended the recent Supreme Court (SC) hearing of petitions against the 22nd constitutional amendment (22A) bill, as an observer, has raised concern over several key issues, such as the rejection of a request for a full bench, the refusal of a request for the Chief Justice’s recusal, non-inclusion of senior judges on the SC bench, and the denial of opportunity for petitioners to make oral submissions.
Minister of Justice Harshana Nanayakkara took great pains to belittle the CLA, in Parliament on Tuesday, claiming that it was not an organisation officially recognised or registered under the Commonwealth Secretariat. It was a private club whose members paid fees for membership, he claimed. Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala joined the Justice Minister in bashing the CLA. Both of them are lawyers.
The government also resorted to the classical straw-man approach; misrepresenting the CLA arguments as biased views of an organisation lacking Commonwealth recognition, it claimed that they were both unacceptable and unworthy of consideration. The CLA’s observations on the SC hearings went unchallenged in Parliament for all intents and purposes.
Defending the CLA and its observations, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said that if the government did not recognise the CLA it ought to make a formal statement in Parliament to that effect. The ruling party members ignored his challenge. Another Opposition MP demanded to know why the Justice Minister said he had agreed to meet Steven Thiru if he thought the CLA was only a private club.
There is no way the government can justify its diatribe against the CLA. This is what the Commonwealth Secretariat’s own website says about the CLA: “The CLA’s objectives are to maintain and promote the rule of law throughout the Commonwealth: CLA is a pan-Commonwealth organisation which seeks to uphold the rule of law in the Commonwealth by encouraging exchange of ideas between legal professionals, academics and students, through projects and by driving improvements in legal education. It holds a number of short events throughout the year and has a biennial conference, the Commonwealth Law conference, which regularly attracts over 1,000 delegates including some of the finest legal professionals in the world today to discuss issues of interest to the profession over a four-day period.” It will be interesting to hear what the government has to say about this? One can only hope that in a bid to defend the indefensible, the JVP-NPP bigwigs will not condemn the Commonwealth itself as a colonial relic that perpetuates the imperial legacy, facilitates British soft power, reproduces unequal North-South relationship, retains the monarchy as an important symbol of its imperial past, and serves elite interests.
Besides the CLA, the International Association of Judges, representing 93 national organisations across five continents, LAWASIA and the French National Bar Council have taken exception to 22A. In fact, counsel, warnings and criticism need not come from experts for them to be worthy of consideration. For example, a warning that the rear wheels of a heavy vehicle being reversed are dangerously close to the edge of a precipice could come from a child. To disregard such warnings is to invite disaster. One may recall that it was a child who told the proverbial emperor that he was waking in the buff while everyone else was pretending to admire his new clothes.
Meanwhile, the position of some prominent civil society activists and public intellectuals on 22A defies logic. One could argue that they are engaged in an intellectual steeplechase, skillfully clearing all obstacles except the key issues, especially the possible politico-legal consequences of 22A. Perhaps, they are wary of offending President Anura Kumara Dissanayake by expressing their candid views and therefore behave like the proverbial curate who lacked the courage to say an egg on his plate was bad and in deference to his host and Bishop claimed that parts of it were excellent.
If raising mandatory retirement ages is a sine qua non for making a system efficient and doing away with delays, as the government has claimed in the case of the judiciary, then one can argue that the retirement ages of doctors, university teachers, and other state employees must also be raised as part of a strategy to do away with delays that characterise government hospitals, universities, the Department of Motor Traffic, the Department of Registration of Persons, the Department of Immigration and Emigration, the Colombo Port, the state-owned bus service, etc.
The SC determination on 22A is yet to be announced. Nevertheless, if the legitimacy and acceptability of laws derive solely from SC determinations thereon, then one can argue that no one should be critical of the 18th Amendment (2010), which abolished the presidential term limit and concentrated more power in the executive presidency for the benefit of the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the 20th Amendment (2020), which allowed dual citizens to serve as legislators, benefiting the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s sibling Basil. Those amendments passed muster with the apex court but obviously lacked legitimacy and acceptability. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was also ‘duly passed’ by Parliament, but it is one of the worst laws this country has ever seen. The same holds true for 22A, crafted to enable the JVP-led government to consolidate its grip on power and lay the foundation for the perpetuation of its rule. NPP General Secretary Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe has publicly stated that the JVP/NPP will be in power until 2050. One may recall that the JVP went on a killing spree and destroyed state assets worth billions of dollars in a bid to scuttle the 13th Amendment, which was passed by Parliament with a five-sixths majority. So, as for 22A, problems will not go away even if the government succeeds in securing its passage.
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Colombo Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazaar, smarting from a spate of social media attacks, has warned of legal action against those responsible for circulating an AI-generated fake video of flooding in Colombo. The Mayor’s concerns need to be appreciated. It is hoped that she will resort to legal action against the culprits. Similarly, she ought to redouble her efforts to ensure that drains and canals in the city are cleared regularly to prevent flash floods. Complaints abound that the CMC did not heed calls from the public to clear some waterways and demolish unauthorised structures. Minister of Public Administration and Local Government A. H. M. Abeyratne told Parliament yesterday that failure to maintain drainage systems properly in Colombo had led to recent flooding. The CMC should not have waited until the city was flooded to clear storm water drainage systems.
One may recall that when Balthazaar was asked, in the run-up to the 2025 local government elections, whether she was confident of being able to develop the Colombo city if the NPP secured control of the CMC, she answered in the affirmative, using the Sinhala expression “bade bath wage” (like rice in the belly). Her response attracted much social media attention. The CMC, however, did precious little to prevent flash floods in the city and ignored warnings. Stormwater drains and canals remained blocked, and a downpour turned much of Colombo into a mini lake, which cynics dubbed the ‘Balthazaar Reservoir’.
True, Colombo’s flooding is not a recent phenomenon, and one particular CMC administration cannot be held responsible for the problem in its entirety. Nevertheless, the floods could have been better managed had the CMC taken precautions, particularly after Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya directed state officials to have drains and canals cleared ahead of impending heavy rains. When the skies opened and much of the city was submerged, it was as though the ‘rice in the belly’ had been flushed out in a bout of diarrhoea.
Now that the Colombo Mayor has decided to take legal action against the individuals who created the fake flood video, the question is why the people affected by the real floods in Colombo should not sue those whose lapses led to the flash floods in the city, affecting many houses, shops, and vehicles. The victims deserve state assistance.
International jurisprudence demonstrates that local authorities and other public agencies are not invariably immune from legal action for urban flooding. Courts in the United States, Britain and Australia have recognised liability where negligent maintenance of drainage systems, failure to address known flooding hotspots or prolonged neglect of public infrastructure caused foreseeable damage. Sri Lanka should examine whether recurrent flooding in Colombo and other urban centres warrants not merely administrative inquiries but also legal accountability where preventable failures can be established. Urban centres in other areas, such as Avissawella, were also flooded, and some of them are under local government authorities controlled by the Opposition.
Legal experts have pointed out that the Municipal Councils Ordinance expressly requires councils to maintain public drains, while the Auditor General has documented unfinished drainage projects and locations vulnerable to flooding even under ordinary rainfall. International experience demonstrates that public authorities may be held liable for negligent flood-control management. Sri Lanka should therefore consider whether its legal framework and enforcement mechanisms provide adequate remedies to victims of preventable flooding, including compensation, where negligence is established, and judicial intervention to compel the discharge of statutory duties.
The Supreme Court (SC) has determined that the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (PSTB) can be passed by a simple parliamentary majority subject to four amendments at the Committee Stage. The amendments include requiring police applications for extended custody, replacing the Court of Appeal with the Supreme Court for judicial oversight, deleting a redundant provision and clarifying the scope of executive orders subject to judicial review. The SC has rejected arguments that the PSTB is essentially a ‘PTA Plus’, observing that it contains significant improvements over the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
Interestingly, the SC has said it agrees with “the submission of the Additional Solicitor General that the provisions of this Bill [PSTB] must be assessed on the safeguards actually contained in it rather than on hypotheses that the relevant officers charged with the powers under the Bill may disregard those safeguards”. The SC has also included in its determination a chart, whose contents it says would show how the PSTB has specifically provided for safeguards and judicial oversight to prevent the abuse of executive power. It has said that having regard to the above provisions in the PSTB it is unable to accept the submission of the Petitioners that the provisions of the Bill lack the judicial oversight and adequate checks and balances against any possible abuse of powers it has conferred on the Executive. This is the opinion of the SC, but the critics of the PSTB are convinced otherwise. It is said that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we will see whether the so-called safeguards are robust enough to prevent the abuse of the proposed security law.
The government knows more than one way to shoe a horse. It stands accused of having sought to smuggle some of the most draconian features of the PTA into the POCB, while claiming to be committed to repealing the former. The proposed legislation appears to reproduce several of the PTA’s most notorious provisions, including the admissibility of confessions made in police custody and prolonged detention under executive authority, while extending extraordinary powers to a wide range of offences. In effect, the repeal of one repressive law could become a charade if its objectionable features were resurrected in another guise.
Judicial sanction alone does not make a Bill widely acceptable, politically legitimate or democratically desirable. One may recall that the 13th Amendment survived Supreme Court scrutiny, yet the JVP, now the principal constituent of the ruling NPP, took up arms in a futile bid to scuttle it. That amendment plunged the country into a bloodbath. The 18th Amendment, too, received judicial clearance, but it was widely criticised for consolidating presidential power, dismantling important checks and balances and abolishing the presidential term limit. Several of its objectionable features were subsequently reversed by the 19th Amendment. The 20th Amendment restored the executive powers of the President curtailed by the 19th Amendment and removed the disqualification that had prevented dual citizens, including Basil Rajapaksa, from entering Parliament. Parliament had to introduce the 21st Amendment to reverse the 20th Amendment. Clearly, judicial approval is no substitute for public scrutiny, democratic accountability and sound legislative judgment. The 22nd Amendment, which extended the retirement ages of superior court judges, including the serving ones, also illustrates how judicial clearance does not necessarily translate into wide acceptability. The measure encountered strong opposition not only from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka but also from internationally respected professional bodies, including the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association, LAWASIA and the International Association of Judges, over concerns about judicial independence and public confidence in the administration of justice. Similarly, although the PSTB may be passed with a simple parliamentary majority, it will continue to attract criticism from its critics, including UN human rights experts, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, unless its objectionable provisions are substantially revised.
The government would do well to withdraw both the PSTB and the POCB, conduct meaningful stakeholder consultations and redraft them in conformity with international human rights standards. There is little merit in enacting laws that are constitutionally permissible but remain fundamentally at odds with international obligations and democratic principles.
Continue Reading Editorial Budget: A politico-economic high-wire act Published
Deputy Minister of Finance Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando has urged the public not to assess Budget 2027 solely on the basis of welfare benefits or tax concessions. They should instead consider its overall economic direction and the transformation it seeks to achieve, he has said, noting that what really matters is how it proposes to transform the economy, expand production, attract foreign investment and create employment opportunities. Making a special statement on the JVP-NPP administration’s government’s third budget, Dr. Fernando has claimed that the previous budgets under the incumbent government focused on addressing economic challenges and establishing much-needed macroeconomic stability in the country.
The subtext of Dr. Fernando’s statement is that the relief expected from Budget 2027 may fall short of public expectations. Is this an exercise in managing expectations ahead of an inevitable disappointment? The economic recovery measures prescribed under the IMF programme are undoubtedly painful, but Sri Lanka has little choice but to pursue the necessary reforms if it is to avoid another economic collapse. The programme has helped restore macroeconomic stability, rebuild reserves and put public finances on a more sustainable footing. The challenge now is to move beyond stabilisation and make the transition to sustained economic growth.
Dr. Fernando’s request to the public makes economic sense. There is much more to a budget than welfare and tax concessions. Ironically, the JVP/NPP is now doing exactly the opposite of what it pressured the previous government to do; its trade unions staged numerous street protests demanding public sector pay hikes and tax reductions. The NPP’s election manifesto, A Thriving Nation: A Beautiful life, promised to revise public servants’ salaries every six months in keeping with the cost of living. Yet, having granted a salary increase through Budget 2025, the government appears to have quietly abandoned its pledge to undertake regular salary revisions every six months. Such promises, among other things, enabled the JVP/NPP to win elections. Naturally, trade unions are demanding pay hikes and tax reductions.
Politically motivated welfarism pursued by successive governments has fostered a chronic culture of dependency, with much of the electorate accustomed to expecting state handouts and subsidies and voting for politicians who promise to prioritise welfare over sustainable economic growth. Some governments have even resorted to drastic tax cuts and reductions in fuel prices to curry favour with voters, often at considerable economic cost.
Sri Lankan governments have perfected the art of buying votes with public funds, turning elections into little more than bidding contests in which politicians outdo one another with extravagant promises. The present Opposition is doing precisely what the JVP did when it was in opposition, ratcheting up pressure on the government to grant substantial pay hikes, slash taxes and expand subsidies, despite being fully aware of the economic consequences of such measures. It is against this backdrop that Dr. Fernando’s aforementioned appeal to the public should be viewed.
Dr. Fenando has said that having achieved economic stability, the government is now seeking to move towards economic expansion and structural transformation. This is the only way to consolidate economic stability to achieve sustainable growth. However, economic stability and political stability are inextricably linked; neither can be sustained for long in the absence of the other. When both collapse, anarchy tends to break loose. In a country steeped in welfare-oriented politics, where the state is looked upon as a providential benefactor expected to put welfare above all else, austerity measures could lead to widespread unrest however essential they may be to strengthen the economy.
The challenge facing Sri Lanka is to move from an austerity-driven stabilisation programme towards a growth-oriented, investment-led and socially inclusive recovery, without sacrificing the hard-won gains in macroeconomic stability. The World Bank identifies private investment, productivity, exports and job creation as central to the next phase of the country’s recovery. So, Budget 2027 will have to focus on consolidating economic stability, reviving economic growth and investment, restoring livelihoods and protecting vulnerable groups, investing in human capital, ensuring equitable burden-sharing, improving governance and public-sector efficiency, and building resilience against future crises, as economic experts have pointed out. This is a tall order, and whether the government is equal to the task will be seen when Budget 2027 is unveiled in Parliament.
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