| by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“No questioning arises from
subservient lips”.
Andrée Chedid (For Rushdie)
( November 17, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ideally Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike would
have prevented her husband from accepting Rajapaksa largesse; ideally.
Ideally, the Supreme Court would have resisted
the 18th Amendment; ideally.
Ideally the term-limit provision would be in
place and a post-Rajapaksa future just five years away; ideally.
But as Gandalf of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy told Frodo Baggins, “All we have to
decide is what to do with the time that is given us”. And the time that is ours
has given us just three options: follow the Rajapaksas out of conviction, fear
or cupidity; seek refuge in indifference; or do whatever possible, within the
law and within democratic norms, to preserve the last remaining
non-Rajapaksised spaces.
And for those who value the few islets of
relative autonomy and marginal freedom still extant in our polity and society,
supporting the CJ and the judiciary in their contestation with the Ruling
Family is an inescapable duty.
Irrespective of their analysis/opinion of the
CJ’s past actions.
The Rajapaksa tide is an all encompassing one;
it will allow no exceptions; it seeks to submerge every aspect of political and
civil life. It will dictate not only who will rule us but also how we should
live and what we should think.
The Siblings are targeting the judiciary
precisely because the courts are beginning to resist this absolutist tide.
In its ruling on the 2013 appropriation bill,
the three-judge bench headed by Justice Shirani Thilakawardana reiterated that
finances are the sole responsibility of the legislature and stated that “…no single member of the executive should be
permitted to traipse within the boundaries of that power” (The Sunday Times – 11.11.2012). Rulings
such as these are of seminal importance because they remind us of those lines
of power-demarcation without which a democracy will die.
It is that spirit of judicial independence the
Rajapaksas want to pulverise.
The Siblings overwhelmed the CJ’s husband with
largesse, partly to discredit her, partly to ensure her ‘good behaviour’.
Indubitably, the impeachment would have come sooner, had the CJ resisted the
Rajapaksa power-grab earlier. That is why our opinion of Ms. Bandaranaike’s
past conduct should not prevent us from defending her in the impeachment
battle, so long as she continues to resist the absolutist tide. In that battle
she symbolises judicial independence; she stands for a judiciary which is
willing to uphold the constitution even at the risk of incurring the wrath of
the political leaders. That battle has a relevance beyond Rajapaksa Rule.
Lankan judiciary must retain the capacity to resist anti-democratic,
anti-constitutional moves by the executive, irrespective of the identity of the
executive.
The impeachment is thus not a contestation
between Shirani Bandaranaike and Mahinda Rajapaksa. The impeachment is not even
a contestation between the executive and the judiciary in the classic sense, in
the way such contestations happen in democratic contexts. It is a contestation
between an ailing democracy and a voracious despotism. It is the final
Rajapaksa offensive against the judiciary, in the Siblings’ overall battle to
seal Sri Lanka’s
fate as a patrimonial oligarchy.
If the Rajapaksas win the impeachment battle
politically and propagandistically, if Lankan polity and society fail to
inflict a de-legitimising wound on Rajapaksa Rule, the Siblings will have a
judiciary that is totally under their thumbs. This will enable them to do administer
the last rites to democratic freedoms and basic rights perfectly legally, with
the blessings of the courts. Equally pertinently, it will enable them to win
the succession battle, if the demise of President Rajapaksa happens before
another Rajapaksa is ensconced in the prime minister’s seat.
The Succession Issue
The Siblings are accelerating their power-grab –
via the impeachment - partly because they want to ensure that a Rajapaksas
succeeds a Rajapaksa.
The Rajapaksas are making serfs of all Lankans,
starting with SLFPers. Since their project includes not just familial rule but
also dynastic succession, the demise of Mahinda Rajapaksa will not save the
SLFP (and the country) from bondage. It will be a case of ‘President Rajapaksa
is dead! Long live President Rajapaksa!’
Is that the future we want for ourselves? Would
any non-Rajapaksa SLFPer, however true-blue, be happy with such a future?
Usually, aspiring despots with dynastic dreams
come to power in youth/early middle age. Thus they have the time to acclimatise
their societies to the notion of dynastic succession. By the time the
Presidential-father dies, the country has been conditioned into seeing in the
son-in-waiting the only possible successor. Such travesties are possible not
just in antediluvian lands like North Korea
but even in sophisticated societies like Syria.
Mahinda Rajapaksa became president rather later
in life. This makes a gradualist approach to the succession issue unaffordable,
politically. His sons are too young and his brothers are not ‘party-seniors’,
the way a Maithripala Sirisena or Nimal Siripala Silva is. If a presidential
demise happens before the succession issue is resolved, the Party might rebel
against the Family.
Since death is the great unknown, the Siblings
must subjugate every pivotal institution in society so that they play their
allotted role in ensuring that President Rajapaksa is succeeded not by another
SLFPer but by another Rajapaksa.
The militarization of Sri Lanka by a Rajapakasised
military is an important component in this plan. The subjugation of the Supreme
Court is another. A non-subjugated chief justice can seriously upset Rajapaksa
dynastic plans, by ruling against the Family in a post-Mahinda power
contestation between the Party and the Family. A completely invertebrate CJ is
thus a necessary condition for dynastic succession.
The importance of the impeachment battle cannot
be overdrawn for either side. If the Rajapaksas win it
politico-psychologically, they will be able to use the courts to destroy every
pocket of resistance. But if the Rajapaksas emerge from the impeachment battle
with their legitimacy scathed, the judiciary will gain a much needed dose of
vigour to lead the democratic resistance against the gathering darkness of
impunity, arbitrariness and unfreedom.
No judicial system is perfect. There are judges
who act unjustly in any judicial system. But if the impeachment battle is lost,
the end result will be more than a few or even many unjust judges; it will be
an unjust system, a system which is structurally incapable of dispensing
justice, even occasionally; a system which is nothing more than an instrument
of Rajapaksa patronage and Rajapaksa vengeance, not some of the time but all
the time.
Only the Rajapaksa kin and their current kith
would be safe in such a land. Even Rajapaksa friends/allies/supporters will
become insecure, if they slip down the totem pole of Rajapaksa-favour, as
symbolised by the fate of Presidential Advisor Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra.
For the Rajapaksas and for the rest of us, the
impeachment is the Rubicon. Once this is crossed, there will be no turning
back, and barring a miracle, Lankans will have to become resigned to a
seemingly endless Rajapaksa future. Realistically the options before us will be
reduced to servitude, death/imprisonment or exile.
Vellupillai Pirapaharan did not give Tamils any
other choice. The Rajapaksas will treat all Lankans, including every
Sinhala-Buddhist, in the same way.
