Our beloved country – the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, requires continuous effort to thrive, and a constant willingness to broaden and deepen the application of its legislation and principles.
by Zulkifli Nazim
“If we desire respect for law, we must make the law respectable.”
- [Louis De. Brandies, Associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1916-1939)]
National intelligence agencies in a country cannot operate in a vacuum. These must have guidance from the people they serve. They exist as a tool of government to gather and assess information, and if they do not receive direction, chances are greater that resources will be misdirected and wasted. They need to know what information to collect and when it is needed and how to best assemble them so as to create some cohesion. Guidance must come from the top.
Our concern today, is regarding the “National Intelligence Act’ which makes us backtrack to the fateful day - February 1978 - when the then Prime Minister Junius Richard Jayewardene became President following constitutional changes that effected the creation of an executive Presidency. For over 40 years Sri Lanka had entered a period in which the separation of powers came to an end and the legislature, executive and judiciary would be in the hands of a single person: The President.
We witnessed a Parliament where it completely relinquished its capacity to control the executive and hold it to account. The country still being governed by presidential decrees. We had observed and experience how the many members of the judicial system, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors and the highest courts would be named by a single person; and under a situation where the president proclaims a state of emergency he will also be able to issue legally binding decrees and control the country without the parliament having any say whatsoever.
Our fear is when the Cabinet approved the drafting of the ‘National Intelligence Act’ Bill - legislators and some partisans who strongly support their party's policies were found reluctant to compromise with their political opponents. They proclaimed that this bill is clearly unconstitutional and illegal; at the same time it gives a free pass to both party members, supporters and security personnel, who break the law, and create even more uncertainty in the process, and most importantly, punish anyone who dares to point out that the emperor has no clothes. This would turn out to be truly embarrassing.
So, in the near future we may have a repetition of the functioning of the executive presidency in the guise of the National Intelligence Act. It is very hard for the people to even imagine how this would be legal, when it is an effort to ensure that political incumbents and powerful special interests can avoid any type of accountability because they will be able to intimidate and threaten any citizen who dares to question them.
We can also expect political insiders prioritizing efforts to protect themselves from their being exposed, those who had committed and may commit some of the most egregious violations – conspicuously, flagrant and outrageously reprehensible iniquities. At the same time weaponizing the judiciary and making it a partisan tool only to attack their political enemies and gamed in an unfair and unscrupulous manner to protect their political friends, while every attempt is made to punish all who dare even look at them.
We can also visualize the maximizing the complexity of enforcement action provides ample ability for political insiders to escape punishments and penalties for violating the law, while they create a Byzantine system of punishment for newcomers to the political process where politicians can wholesale violate the law. Obviously these would have even more “unintended” severe consequences.
In such a situation, it will turn out largely to be the punishment of the innocent and the guilty, by the guilty. All kinds of petty rats, certain police officials, penny-a-lining journalists and women will be hunted down while almost without exception the big rats escape and we, the rest of us, the little people, ordinary innocent citizens who even commit a minor violation will just be crushed. Sri Lanka will end-up by being horribly ashamed.
This Act will also make elections hollowed out as autocracies, A political theory favouring unlimited authority by a single individual, and find ways to control their results while sustaining a veneer of competitive balloting. Polls in which the outcome can be shaped by coercion, fraud, gerrymandering - Dividing Voting districts, unfairly and to one's advantage, or other manipulations. Freedom of expression will come under sustained attack, through both assaults on the press and encroachments on the speech rights of ordinary citizens. The offensive against freedom of expression will be supercharged by a new and more effective form of digital authoritarianism.
We who are committed to human rights and democratic governance should not limit ourselves to a wary defense of the status quo. Instead we should throw ourselves into projects intended to renew national and international participation, to make protections for human dignity even more just and more comprehensive, including for workers whose lives are disrupted by technological and economic change.
Our beloved country – the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, requires continuous effort to thrive, and a constant willingness to broaden and deepen the application of its legislation and principles. The future of democracy depends on our ability to show that it is more than a set of bare-minimum defenses against the worst abuses of tyrants—it is a guarantee of the freedom to choose and live out one’s own destiny. We must demonstrate that the full promise of democracy can be realized, and recognize that no one else will do it for us. We should oppose the continued undermining of institutions that protect freedoms of expression and association and the rule of law.
We can see that our politics is straining our core values and testing the stability of our constitutional system. Nothing shows in our living memory less respect for its tenets, norms, and principles, like in this present era. Some of our politicians have assailed and aggressively challenging and abusing the essential institutions - the free press, independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice and safeguards against corruption. Sad to note successive governments too frequently failed to push back meaningfully against these attacks.
We recognize the right of freely elected presidents and lawmakers and pursue other legitimate aims related to national security. But they must do so according to rules designed to protect individual rights and ensure the long-term survival of the democratic system.
There are no ends that justify non-democratic means.
The goal should not be to protect incumbents and the powerful special interests who control the bureaucrats; but new laws that are to be enacted should make the process fair for everyone, not tilted in favor of one political party over another or tilted in favor of one special interest over another.
This is what every right-minded, thinking citizen wants.
“Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel, acts the brute.” – Blaise Pascal.
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