Is the Chief Justice above the law ?

by Charles.S.Perera

(October 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There was an article by Narendra Ch in Merrynews.com on "whether the Judiciary is above the law". To preserve the independence of the Judiciary and maintain the dignity of the Judges, criticism of the Judiciary is considered a contempt of court, and one can be charged for that offence . There is another interesting website the Judicial Watch, which gives detail of the Judicial Scandal concerning the impeachment of David A. Brock, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire (http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2000/587.shtml)

The removal of a Chief Justice for abuse of the Judicial position is apparently by an impeachment. But when the country is facing a " point of no return in a war against terrorism", I presume without being critical of the Chief Justice , or his judgements, one could say from the point of view of a common man that the Judges should resort to matters brought before the court for judgement and not make judicial orders on matters that had not been contested and placed before the Justice for a decision.

One questions, as to why just now when the world's most ruthless terrorist, as accepted by the International Community is being hunted and about to be nailed down, all protective measures taken by the Government and Armed Forces, to safe guard the people from a south ward exodus of terrorists from Killinochchi, and Mulative, bringing with them explosives to the south, are being removed by an order of the Chief Justice. The latest report is that a Judicial Order has been made for the removal of all barricades and road blocks along the Galle Road.

The decision looks sinister as these barricades protect not only the public who frequent the road , but it is an important security measure to protect the President of Sri Lanka whose residence is on this road.

It is difficult to understand this sudden decision to protect the right of the people's free movement, just when the suicide bombs and claymore bomb explosions become frequent in Colombo. The removal of these barriers some time back resulted in large number of deaths of civilians and Children ( Colombo Fort bomb). I think good sense should prevail, above legal decision in the exercise of protecting the civilian population and the Chief of the Government, and high ranking officials. Saving lives of people is more important than the freedom of their movement.

Perhaps the declaration of emergency in Colombo may be one means to overcome the embarrassing situation of the Police and the Security Forces. It was some time back that the Chief Justice had mentioned that no-body is above the Law, but that does not mean that there is some one above the law that can do what ever he wants, without being questioned by any one.

Something is going wrong in our mother Lanka, with the terrorism, and the all international do gooders on the back with the cry of violation of human rights, this decision to remove the people protective safeguards is as one says in France: c'est la Cerise sur le Gâteau.

The meeting was arranged for the only purpose of giving the much needed publicity that there was no problems been Douglas Devanada and the TMVP. According to sources the prearranged meeting did not have an agenda for discussion and was simply a photographic session for the world to see that there were no problems between the parties and to ridicule the previous news. Both shook their hands and stood with their gleaning teeth for the government photographer to get the good shots. Huge studio curtain too was well set for the occasion for the government media propaganda to outmanoeuvre the scandal reported in the previous news.

Both Karuna and Douglas are still to confirm what they had achieved out of the meeting except for helping the government to avoid facing major scrutiny over the scandal.

The government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is using spin doctors of varied expertise to bolster his image and further revelations about the activities of these spin doctors engaged by the government will confirm to the extent the government is able to overcome some of the serious issues being publicly debated. - Sri Lanka Guardian