G.L. Peiris -- A Ghost advertising a Phantom Limb

"In his new life he stands for executive power without law. He thinks that those who demand rule of law, inquiries into deaths and rape, those who call for fair trials before courts that have real power to ensure a fair trial are traitors and associates of terrorist groups."

BY OUR POLITICAL EDITOR

( October 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A ghost appeared in London at the Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) trying to advertise a phantom limb. It was the ghost of a onetime academic with many titles to his name. One who had taught a generation of students as a professor of law; but that was a long time back. Now, the ghost no longer has any memory of law, any law, not even of the Magna Carta. Now he defends the principle that the ruler can be above the law and that the ruler can deprive the individual of life and property without the due process of the law. The ghost is a onetime professor of law that has forgotten the rule of law, due process, the independence of the judiciary and whatever that might have once been called constitutionalism; all the things that this ghost taught in his past life.

In his new life he stands for executive power without law. He thinks that those who demand rule of law, inquiries into deaths and rape, those who call for fair trials before courts that have real power to ensure a fair trial are traitors and associates of terrorist groups. By his very own definition of terrorism he himself must be judged a terrorist in his past life as a professor of law.

At IISS he called those who refused to appear before the Lessons learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), associates of the LTTE. That was because they pointed out that this LLRC does not have a mandate to investigate alleged abuses of rights and war crimes. It must be given a chance before pre-judging it, he said. However, at the time when he was a law professor he would have known that no one will expect a proper investigation from a commission that has no mandate to investigate.

Today, the former professor's ghost has been given the task of trying to present a phantom limp as a real one.