Freedoms and their demise: Rejoinder to a critic

"Here’s my problem: If we don’t respect the decision of the courts and disagree with those of the people at repeated elections (which Mahinda Rajapakse wins handsomely), what do we have left, and who is the ultimate arbiter whom the citizens of Sri Lanka should follow?"

BY DR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

(September 15, Singapore City, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have no disagreement with the thesis that freedoms die, but I contend that the spirit of freedom does not. In any case, the critic sets up a straw man, since my intention was a critique of the many voices that claimed and still do, that the 18th amendment marked the death of democracy (and some even opined, the nation). As I have stated elsewhere, I agree with Kalana Senaratne’s critique of 18A in the last issue of the Sunday Leader while I also think the Supreme Court has made some valid and interesting points, worthy of serious debate. (Mr Senaratne whose LLM is from the University of London, is a doctoral student of law at the prestigious University of Hong Kong).

But let us meet the argument head on. This critic sees the glass of Sri Lanka’s freedoms as empty or near-empty while I see it as half full.

Living and working in Asia, he should look around him more often and ask himself whether some of the freedoms we Sri Lankan citizens still enjoy are so much in evidence elsewhere that we can cavalierly write them off as ‘dead’. Sri Lanka’s freedoms have been diminished but to declare them dead only means that we do not protect the area of freedom we still have or use it as a liberated zone to win back those freedoms that have been diminished as well as gain those we lost long ago or never enjoyed.

I look at things from the perspective of comparative international politics. Here is an Associated Press (AP) report from Ankara, Turkey, dated Sept 14th.

‘A senior court official has warned that the independence of the courts could be brought into question after Turks approved changes to the constitution...Some 42 percent voted against on Sunday, fearing the changes would give the ruling Islamic-oriented party powers to appoint judges and prosecutors close to the party, and allow it to advance a pro-Islamic agenda. Kadir Ozbek, who heads the Judges and Prosecutors Higher Board, said Monday Turkey is at point that is "more backward than yesterday."

Does that sound familiar? Does this mean democracy or freedoms are dead (or on their death-bed) in today’s Turkey? For my part I have a very positive overall view of Turkey and its current leadership, largely due to its stances in world affairs.

Sure there was a referendum on Turkey’s recent Constitutional changes, and I would have preferred one in our case too, but in Sri Lanka the only legal authority that can deem one necessary is the Supreme Court and it did not, giving reasons why not. Some may have a problem with the composition and character of the highest court. Here’s my problem: If we don’t respect the decision of the courts and disagree with those of the people at repeated elections (which Mahinda Rajapakse wins handsomely), what do we have left, and who is the ultimate arbiter whom the citizens of Sri Lanka should follow?

[Dr Dayan Jayatilleka is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and author of Fidel’s Ethics of Violence, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor and Pluto Press, London.]

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