- The Supreme Court could, for instance, hold that while the President enjoys immunity on actions he undertakes in an official or personal capacity that does not make him immune from any actions he undertakes in a ministerial capacity. Or else, he could assign himself all ministries and no one would be able to take any action against any ministerial order!
- The Supreme Court has previously held that officials carrying out illegal orders from their superiors are liable for their actions. They could adopt the same doctrine for Finance Ministry Secretary Mahinda Siriwardena.
- Dolawatte chooses to ignore the fact that the court is only ordering that funds voted for a specific purpose by Parliament be used for that very purpose, instead of being subjected to manipulation by the Executive. In so doing, the court is in fact trying to strengthen Parliament’s control over finances
We predicted in these columns that Act 2 in the drama relating to local government elections will follow soon. It did- and the prospect of the poll being held on April 25 is diminishing by the day.
Act 2 was staged in Parliament last week. The main ‘actor’ was Premanath C. Dolawatte, Attorney-at-law and a hitherto relatively unknown backbencher from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).
The first-time parliamentarian, who usually speaks in Sinhala, spoke in English and read off a prepared statement in hurried, faltering and stammering speech that suggested that he was reading what someone else had written for him. Being a lawyer, Dolawatte could not have been unaware of the gravity of what he was saying- or more accurately, what he was being asked to read out.
Dolawatte raised a matter of privilege. The Supreme Court interim order compelling the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance to release funds already allocated by Parliament for the local government election was a violation of parliamentary privileges, he claimed.
Dolawatte’s argument was based on a curious premise. The court ordering that funds be released violated the privilege that Parliament enjoyed in controlling finances, he said. Conveniently, he forgets or chooses to ignore the fact that the court is only ordering that funds voted for a specific purpose by Parliament be used for that very purpose, instead of being subjected to manipulation by the Executive.
In so doing, the court is in fact trying to strengthen Parliament’s control over finances. So it must be that Dolawatte is either so lacking in intelligence not to realise that despite being a lawyer by training, or, so much of a lackey that he is doing His Master’s bidding by reading a statement that he was ordered to read, casting all professional and personal dignity aside.
Dolawatte then went one step further. He played judge and jury. It was wrong for one Supreme Court bench to deliver an order on an issue when a related issue was being examined by another bench of the Supreme Court, he said. Adding insult to injury, he then claimed that a particular Justice of the Supreme Court should not have sat on that bench!
Dolawatte’s antics were clearly aimed at intimidating and stifling the Supreme Court and thereby challenge the independence of the judiciary. The message was loud and clear, even if it was delivered in a halting and stammering style: the ruling party didn’t like being dictated to by the judiciary about what was right and wrong.
Dolawatte requested that his purported violation of parliamentary privileges be referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Privileges. The ever dutiful Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena has done just that, despite pleas from the opposition not to entertain the frivolous complaint.
That though was only part of the drama. Days later, State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe rose to make another request. As Dolawatte’s issue has been referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Privileges, instructions should be made to the relevant authorities making preparations for the election not to proceed with them, until the committee reviews and disposes of the matter, Semasinghe said.
As we know only too well, the deliberations of such committees can take months. If officials were to indeed refrain from making preparations for the poll until the matter was concluded, that would effectively postpone the election indefinitely- which is exactly what the government wants.
Several issues that should give cause for alarm emerge from all this. The first is the blatant challenge to the independence and integrity of the judiciary. If one were to infer that the Parliamentary Committee on Ethics and Privileges would go on to examine this issue, summoning Justices of the Supreme Court to Parliament could become a real possibility.
That is not without precedent. We recall how former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayaka was summoned before Parliament and subject to crude, humiliating and insulting remarks before she was impeached- and that too was by a Parliament dominated by the SLPP.
Opposition parliamentarians in fact queried whether this was the next step that was being contemplated. So far, that hasn’t been announced. However, given how lacking in dignity and decorum this Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government has been in pursuing its agenda, summoning judges to Parliament remains an option.
The second issue at stake is the election. Chairman of the Elections Commission (EC) Nimal Punchihewa is already on record saying he hasn’t received any additional funds to conduct the poll, despite the interim order from the Supreme Court. Finance Ministry Secretary Mahinda Siriwardena refrained from attending a discussion called by the EC regarding the election citing the lame excuse that he had to attend a meeting of the Security Council. Surely, the meeting could have been convened at a time when the man holding the nation’s purse strings was available?
The next step, as we understand, is for the EC to tell the Supreme Court that it cannot still proceed with the election as there are no funds. The Finance Ministry Secretary will then inform the court that he can only disburse funds which remains under the purview of the Finance Minister.
The Finance Minister, of course, also happens to be President Ranil Wickremesinghe who enjoys immunity from legal proceedings by virtue of being President. The mater, the government hopes, will stop there and the indefinite postponement of local government elections will become a fait accompli.
Not necessarily. The Supreme Court could, for instance, hold that while the President enjoys immunity on actions he undertakes in an official or personal capacity that does not make him immune from any actions he undertakes in a ministerial capacity. Or else, he could assign himself all ministries and no one would be able to take any action against any ministerial order!
The Supreme Court has previously held that officials carrying out illegal orders from their superiors are liable for their actions. They could adopt the same doctrine for Finance Ministry Secretary Mahinda Siriwardena.
So, this drama ain’t over yet. Await Act 3, most likely in the halls of the Supreme Court.
