Lanka's judiciary and '

If the issue was not so serious, the more mischievous-minded among us would surely chuckle at the decidedly awkward predicament that the Government has got itself into, on the cusp of a general election no less. Ambitious proclamations that the independence of the Sri Lankan judiciary has been fully secured, coming hot on the heels of the executive designating a Chief Justice 'as if he had never been,' are now being exposed as simplistic if not dangerously naïve.

Recognizing the complexity of the issue

Indeed, the impression created that all ills besetting the judiciary have been resolved in one fell swoop by that single executive order has catapulted the new Government into the worst 'yahapalanaya' contradiction possible of its own misplaced rhetoric.

In the first instance, a more measured approach should have marked the fact that challenges to the integrity of Sri Lanka's higher judiciary did not stem from one individual alone, regardless of the multifarious allegations against him, be it ex-Chief Justice Sarath Silva under the Kumaratunga Presidency or 'purported' Chief Justice Mohan Peiris under the Rajapaksa Presidency.

On the contrary, the convulsions gripping Sri Lanka's judiciary in recent decades are reflective of a far graver systemic problem concerning judicial accountability and the lack of critical scrutiny thereof. If a more nuanced debate on these issues had been encouraged post-election, public interest may then have rigorously focused on the judicial institution. Yet the converse was the case. Surfacing of cracks in earlier boasts

Symptomatic of this misleading impression was a blithe if not infuriatingly casual remark made to me shortly after the dismissal of the 'Rajapaksa Chief Justice' by a highly skilled engineer who prides himself on being fully apprised of political events that, 'well, now everything is corrected in regard to the judiciary, right?'

So the wider issue was lost in the impression promoted by the Government that declaring the appointment of a Chief Justice 'null and void' by presidential decree was effectively a magic wand restoring judicial independence. The culpability of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka in lending its voice to this worrisome precedent set for future heads of Government (executive President or Prime Minister as the case may be), was undoubtedly unfortunate.

Predictably therefore, the cracks in this shortsighted manufacturing of public opinion did not take long to surface. Witness therefore President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pulling in different directions while responding to this week's interim relief granted to the former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The order by a two member Bench of the Supreme Court, (the third judicial member recusing himself) effectively shielded the former Defence Secretary from arrest, fixing the next date of hearing four months down the line. Inadequately reflecting realities

The President, in his generally unflappable manner, observed this week that political interference has been removed from the judiciary, pointing to this instance and others as evidence thereof.

To be fair, this credit must certain-