Flying above the law

Iwas very interested to read last week that certain members of parliament had been complaining to the Speaker about the fact that the CID had been checking their mobile phones.

Their plaintive wail was that this action by the CID “violated the privileges they enjoy under standing orders of Parliament”.

They were objecting to the CID ( which for those who may not know, is the acronym of this country’s Criminal Investigation Department, the premier investigation arm of our country’s police) trawling through a vast database of telephone calls that it is alleged these members had had with the man alleged to be at the centre of the Central Bank bond scam, Mr. Arjun Aloysius - son-in-law of disgraced former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran.

Now, making telephone calls to other people who have telephones is something almost all of us have done at some time in our lives. When I was young and people had land lines, if one did not know somebody’s phone number one could look it up in a big book called a telephone directory, which listed all the phone numbers of everybody who had a telephone in Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately with the advent of mobile phones, we cannot just look up the phone number of someone we want to speak to. We have to get people’s cell phone numbers from the persons themselves, or from someone who knows them and will give them to us. We then store the number in our phones so that we can call them or send them text messages at any time. Moreover, if we use a mobile phone app such as Viber

When I was young and people had land lines, if one did not know somebody’s phone number one could look it up in a big book called a telephone directory, which listed all the phone numbers of everybody who had a telephone in Sri Lanka.

( which allows one to make calls with the touch of the phone screen to someone else to whom we are linked on Viber), communication with that person becomes so much more convenient – and completely free.

There is a small problem though – one cannot just make free Viber calls to someone else unless they have invited us to be linked to them on Viber and we have accepted that invitation. This ensures that Viber connections can only be made between consenting adults (and I presume, consenting children).

What struck me as most interesting is that the mobile telephones belonging to some of these MPs have recorded them as exchanging not one but many phone calls as well as Viber calls with Mr. Aloysius.

The State Minister of Development Strategies, Mr. Sujeewa Senasinghe, is recorded as having called Mr. Aloysius no less than 26 times and received no less than six calls from him. He had also made seven Viber calls. In fact, during the period July 4, 2015 to March 3, 2017 Mr. Senasinghe had exchanged no less than 227 calls with Mr. Aloysious!

Another of Mr. Aloysius’ Viber contacts has been shown to be Mr. Hector Appuhamy whose phone is recorded as having made as many as 42 Viber communications with Mr. Aloysisus.

Both Mr. Appuhamy and Mr. Senasinghe are members of Parliament’s Committee on Public Enterprises, commonly known as COPE - a body which is established under Parliament’s Standing Orders at the beginning of each parliamentary session to ensure that public corporations and other semi-governmental bodies in which the Government has a financial stake comply with financial discipline. Since it was first estab - lished in 1979, COPE’s duty has been to examine the accounts of any public corporation and any business undertaking vested in the government and report to Parliament on the financial procedures, performance and management of these organisations.

In October 2016 COPE having investigated the central bank bond matter recommended that Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran should be held responsible for the bond issue scam and that legal action should be taken against him. Our President, however, ignored COPE’s recommendation and appointed a commission of inquiry to further investigate the case.

What struck me as curious is that Mr. Senasinghe, who was not originally a member of COPE, was appointed to the powerful Committee which had the power to investigate financial matters in government and semi-governmental institutions following the resignation of Mr. M. Velu Kumar, another Kandy district MP.

The arts graduate from St Sylvester’s College Velu Kumar conveniently resigned in July 2016 and paved the way for the lawyer from Trinity College Senasinghe to be appointed two days later to fill the vacancy on this powerful body.

Was it that the leader of the UNP wanted a lawyer on this committee investigating the Central Bank matter to protect UNP interests? Were Arjun Aloysius’s many phone communication with Mr. Senasinghe merely to discuss the weather in the central hills or to provide material for a book to be written by this aspiring author? Was the conversation between Aloysius and Senasingh similar to what Donald Trump is alleged to have told the FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, “I hope you can let this go?”

The questions raised by the presence of these many phone and Viber communications between members of an investigative body such as COPE and the man involved in the matters COPE was investigating are, to say the least, intriguing.

As a simple citizen, I firmly believe that none of us, whether we are politicians, attorneys at law or wannabe authors, should behave as if we are above the law.

Especially with regard to whom we talk to on our mobile phones.