Winter of discontent with the judiciary shining a ray of hope

Whatever smiling face the Pohottuwa displays for public consumption, it cannot be happy with President Wickremesinghe’s Christmas gift in the way of the 2024 budget. Had the Pohottuwa and its henchmen been holding the reins they would have come down the chimney playing Santa Claus.

But President Wickremesinghe was more Scrooge than Santa, though he did throw a few tidbits here and there. After all, it is election or elections year and not even the most tight-fisted paying pooja to the monetary gods in Washington can neglect the ‘devils’ at home baying for the blood of the Wickremesinghe supporters and some Pohottuwa prodigies hanging to his coat tails.

Still, Wickremesinghe is the nephew of the “Old Fox” (or as my brother Mervyn called him the 20th Century Fox), Junius Richard Jayewardene and sleight of hand has not been forgotten or is he likely to forget.

So the Rs 10,000 cost-of-living allowance will be available from April. Poet TS Eliot might have called it the “cruellest month” but not for Ranil Wickremesinghe who knows that April is more important than December for that is when Sri Lanka celebrates its biggest traditional festival—the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

Moreover, April is closer to next year’s electoral calendar than December 2023. So money in the hands during the local new year festivities is more important than an earlier Christmas.

Yet those who still remember their Latin (which I doubt Royal College taught during Ranil’s last years at school) would recall Virgil’s line in his epic poem Aeneid: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”, which, for the benefit of those untutored in the classics means “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

To those who are rejoicing or made to think they should, by a disgruntled Pohottuwa leadership with little to offer, President Wickremesinghe playing finance minister is ready to drop manna from heaven in the way of an extra 10,000 rupees a month, might gather more sense by listening to the words of SJB economist and MP Harsha de Silva, if they have never heard of Virgil.

Speaking in the budget debate, MP Harsha de Silva reminded the economically beleaguered populace that what President Wickremesinghe and his economic advisors can give with the right hand they can take away very much more than double with the left.

So if the increase in the living allowance is going to cost the government Rs 133 billion, the revenue earned from the imposition of the new VAT on more items is going to be some Rs 800 billion.

Once again it will be the people who would have to bear the burden, driving more of the people below the poverty line and still others into penury.

But if Harsha de Silva’s calculations and analysis are correct— there is no reason to doubt them— then the public sector employees who are to collect the extra allowances are not beneficiaries but heavy losers who will have to pay through their noses.

The SJB member called the 2024 budget an “oxymoron” budget. Looking at last year’s budgetary performance and this year’s pie-in-thesky pledges with promises of universities and tertiary institutions virtually at every bus stop—if some hyperbole might be permitted—it seems the work of some moronic advisors, never mind oxymorons.

If President Wickremesinghe, whom the Pohottuwa propped up last year with an image of a new messiah has messed them up, the Supreme Court dealt a far more deadly blow to a “kaputu kaak” party that had started emerging from the woodwork believing that all is forgiven after their Israelistyle attack on the peaceful demonstrators on Galle Face.

The Supreme Court has laid waste to the Rajapaksa fiefdom and their so-called economic experts and cronies in a devastating judgement that must surely be unprecedented and historic.

Quoting chapter and verse, four Justices of a five-judge bench of the apex court have found three of the Rajapaksa brothers, and officials who lauded over the country like overlords were responsible for the “severe hardships the people had to suffer due to scarcities such as fuel, gas, medicines coupled with the long hours of power shortages brought the lives of the people to a standstill and the suffering the public had to undergo was undoubtedly immeasurable.”

“We are of the view that by actions, omissions, decisions and conduct hereinbefore identified, to have demonstrably contributed to the economic crisis and we are of the view that Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, the Monetary Board, Nivard Cabraal, WD Lakshman, SR Attygalle, Samantha Kumarasinghe, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and PB Jayasundera had violated the public trust reposed in them and we hold that they were in breach of the fundamental right to equal protection of the law ordained by Art 12 (1) of the constitution”, the judgement said.

Several consequences could flow from this judgement including serious political implications not only for those named but for the Rajapaksa-led SLPP but also possibly for President Ranil Wickremesinghe himself.

One result could be an attempt by opposition parties in parliament to move a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the civic rights of those named for having “acted arbitrarily, irrationally and in callous disregard and breached public trust”.

It might be recalled the JR Jayewardene UNP government appointed a special commission that suspended the civic rights of former prime minister Sirima Bandaranaike, Minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike, former Permanent Secretary of Justice Nihal Jayawickrama and a couple of others for abuse and misuse of power and other charges, for seven years.

That was an obviously political gesture intended to take revenge on two leading political opponents and deprive them of political participation.

But here the court does not call for that. Hence it would be left to parliament. Even if such a resolution is moved, it is hardly likely to be passed as the SLPP still holds a majority in the House and there is no way that the party would support such a motion against its leadership.

Of course, the opposition could call for a vote by name so that those who vote against it are identified. But one can never be certain that this Speaker will allow it.

Still, the stigma of the Supreme Court decision and the SLPP members opposing such a motion must surely have serious repercussions on the party at the next parliamentary elections.

Nor would Wickremesinghe escape the court decision which finds the named persons for breach of public trust and violating a fundamental right named in the constitution, from rubbing off him.

After all, Wickremesinghe was elevated to the presidency by the Rajapaksas and that is why the opposition labels the current administration the Ranil-Rajapaksa government.

It might be argued on political platforms and elsewhere that the judgement by holding the Rajapaksas and their faithful officials responsible for the country’s economic crisis and the hardships the people had to undergo, does, by implication, justify the Aragalaya” and the peaceful public demonstrations that were crushed by the use of the security forces or banned by the Wickremesinghe government.

So the spillover from the stigma directed at the Rajapaksa government would taint Wickremesinghe’s presidency too and therefore his bid to be an elected president—if he decides to do so.

His remark at a media conference last week that he has still not decided whether to contest or not coming now seems to suggest that he has an open mind.

Whether the SC verdict which showed that the judiciary is not averse to challenging political power in the public interest and for breaching public trust, has caused a rethink, many would speculate.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London)