{"id":37704,"date":"2015-01-25T01:15:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T06:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=37704"},"modified":"2015-01-25T01:36:36","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T06:36:36","slug":"basl-and-futa-baying-for-blood-of-chief-justice-and-university-grants-commission-chairperson-with-lynch-mob-mentality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=37704","title":{"rendered":"BASL and FUTA Baying for Blood of Chief Justice and University Grants Commission Chairperson with Lynch mob Mentality"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

C.A.Chandraprema<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recently concluded presidential election has unleashed the worst in human nature. Politicians abandoning and even turning against their fallen leader is nothing to be surprised about. But to see advocates of good governance who are not directly involved in politics baying for blood is certainly a new phenomenon. <\/p>\n

Take the Bar Association for example. From the time the government changed, they have been pressurizing the chief justice to resign. What is going to happen to the ideal of judicial independence when the chief justice is asked to resign following a change of government?<\/p>\n

If the present chief justice resigns, the next time there is a change of government the chief justice at that time, may also be forced to resign on the allegation of being biased in favour of the government that appointed him. This is a dangerous precedent which no government should allow to be set.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The present chief justice was appointed according to the provisions of the constitution. He was appointed by the president with the \u2018parliamentary council\u2019 having the power of review over the appointment. The parliamentary council is made up of the speaker of parliament, the prime minister and one other MP appointed by him and the opposition leader and another MP appointed by him. The procedures in the constitution were followed in appointing Mohan Peiris. <\/p>\n

If Peiris is dislodged on the grounds that he was a favourite of the Rajapaksas, the same allegation may be leveled against all Supreme Court and Appeal Courts judges appointed during the Rajapaksa era. Where will things end in such a situation? Another thing the Bar Association has been calling for is the reinstatement of the former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. She was the first chief justice to be removed through an impeachment.<\/p>\n

But before the then government started the impeachment proceedings, journalists and lawyers were calling for her resignation because of her husband\u2019s involvement with the National Savings Bank share trading scandal. Journalists like Uvindu Kurukulasuriya the editor of the Colombo Telegraph website openly called for Shirani Bandaranayake\u2019s resignation. Now if she is reinstated, the question arises whether it will be ethical for her to remain in office while a case if being heard against her husband in a court under her?<\/p>\n

Three days ago, the Colombo Telegraph reported that even if the \u2018Rajapaksa-fabricated cases\u2019 against her are withdrawn, the case against her husband will continue, according to a \u2018source close to\u2019 Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The Colombo Telegraph went on to say that \u2018her husband Pradeep Kariyawasam\u2019 is facing charges before the Colombo Chief Magistrate\u2019s Court for causing a monetary loss to the Government to the tune of over Rs. 391 million through the unlawful purchase of The Finance Company (TFC) shares. So reinstating Shirani Bandaranayake will not be without controversy. Is yet more controversy what the Supreme Court needs right now?<\/p>\n

The process of trying to force the Chief Justice to resign through professional and political pressure outside the constitutional process as well as the process of trying to reinstate the former Chief Justice is fraught with danger. What any responsible government should do is to allow the incumbent CJ to serve out his term and appoint his replacement in accordance with the constitutional arrangements in force at that time. Forcing a CJ out of office through extra-constitutional means will set a precedent that politicians on both sides will come to rue in the future.<\/p>\n

In addition to the campaign to force the resignation of the CJ, some prominent members of the Federation of University Teachers\u2019 Associations are also trying to force the Chairperson of the University Grants Commission Professor Kshanika Hirimburegama to resign. It is true that the chairmanship of the UGC is not a sacrosanct position like that of the Chief Justice. But in the absence of any proven wrongdoing, simply asking the chairman of the UGC to resign on various allegations which have suddenly surfaced due to the change of government sets a very bad precedent especially in an institution that governs seats of higher learning. Threatening to strike unless the UGC chairperson is removed is not an action that any government which wants to govern the country should countenance.<\/p>\n

By threatening strike action to get the UGC chairperson removed, FUTA has clearly shown how politicized it is. They think nothing of disrupting the education of their students to achieve a political purpose. If the government on the other hand goes along with this kind of political blackmail, they will be opening the floodgates for equally unreasonable demands from other institutions. This has happened in the past as well. Remember the postal strike of the late 1990s with unions demanding the removal of the head of the postal department? <\/p>\n

The Chandrika Kumaratunga government at that time had the will to resist pressure from the unions even though the strike dragged on for more than a month. If any government allows trade unions to remove heads of institutions at will, that will give an opening for political entities like the JVP to take over the effective functioning of the government.<\/p>\n

The JVP has been insisting that the Bribery Commissioner too should resign on the allegation that he had received a car in an improper manner. Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on TV that the Bribery Commissioner cannot be removed but that the Director General can. So they planned to remove the director general and expedite the hearing of bribery cases! To the eternal credit of the Bribery Commissioner, he came before the TV cameras, refuted the allegation of an improper acquisition of a car, mentioned the name of the person from whom he had bought the vehicle and said that due process will be observed with regard to the complaints they have received. <\/p>\n

The director general of the bribery commission also went before the TV cameras and said that officials of institutions like the Bribery Commission should not be removed simply because of a change of government. Since the head of the Bribery Commission himself has been the subject of a false allegation of bribery by the JVP, they should be doubly careful about the spate of new allegations they have been receiving in the wake of the change of government.
\n
\nCourtesy:Sunday Island<\/em><\/p>\n

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By C.A.Chandraprema The recently concluded presidential election has unleashed the worst in human nature. Politicians abandoning and even turning against their fallen leader is nothing to be surprised about. But to see advocates of good governance who are not directly involved in politics baying for blood is certainly a new phenomenon. Take the Bar Association …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘BASL and FUTA Baying for Blood of Chief Justice and University Grants Commission Chairperson with Lynch mob Mentality’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37707,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37704\/revisions\/37707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}