Editorial - save democracy

The Court of Appeal will hold a crucial session tomorrow on the petition filed by Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake challenging the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee which probed the charges in the impeachment motion against her. The Court has issued notice on the Speaker, the members of the PSC and the Secretary General of Parliament. Reports indicate that the Speaker, the seven Government members of the PSC and the Secretary General are likely to ignore the notice issued by the Appeal Court on the basis of an earlier ruling by the Speaker that no other institution can interfere in the affairs of Parliament. The PSC’s four opposition members who withdrew from the sittings on the basis that the CJ was not being given a fair trial had by the week-end not yet received the notice from the CA. UNP member Lakshman Kiriella said if they did receive the notice they would meet and decide what to do. If the PSC’s opposition members appear before the Court of Appeal, if they tell the Court that the CJ was not given a fair trial, and if the PSC’s decision is quashed, then Sri Lanka will face its gravest constitutional crisis.

Most independent analysts believe there are two options now. If the President rises above personal pride or party interests and prorogues Parliament as a way out of the constitutional quagmire, it will be a face-saving compromise and an independent committee of former Supreme Court judges or eminent legal personalities could be appointed to probe the charges against the CJ. This will be acceptable to the Judiciary, the lawyers and other pro-democracy groups who have been campaigning against the impeachment motion for the past few months on the basis that if the Judiciary is brought under the all-powerful Executive Presidency, it will be virtually a quasi-dictatorship with only a velvet glove of democracy to hide the iron fist.

Three of the coalition government’s socialist allies - the LSSP, the CP and the DLF – have pleaded for a prorogation of Parliament as a way out of the crisis. Former Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickremanayake has also expressed similar views. If their pleas are ignored, if the Court of Appeal is ignored and if Parliament goes ahead with what many see as a legal but illegitimate  process, then an appeal might be made to an International forum and Sri Lanka will face the perils of international intervention. What Prabakaran’s ruthless terrorists could not do might now happen because of a politically motivated impeachment motion, the denial of a fair trial and even natural justice to the Chief Justice herself and the hostile manner in which she was treated by political judges in what many independent analysts see as an inquisition.