Rule of Law and the role of elite
When 'we the people' get a straight quote from T. S. Elliot while on the subject of the re-enthronement of Rule of Law in this country, we are not sure in which country we are living. Is this Mafia land where people shoot and ask questions later, or is this the land of ethereal cerebral bliss, where people quote and ask questions later?

"The broad-backed hippopotamus -
Rests on his belly in the mud,'' intoned H. L. De Silva PC in his keynote address at a seminar on the Rule of Law and the Role of the Judiciary in Sri Lanka last week. Then promptly, we had a further two and a half hours of perorations.

People came in droves for the event, which came so close on the heels of the shock and melancholy resulting from the killing of High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya. That we had reached Colombia-like levels of social nihilism in Colombo, where judges and Law and Order figures are bumped-off at the drop of a hat had become oh so abundantly clear within a matter of a few days.

But somehow when we are treated to a tour de force of quotes from 19th century English literati and then allusions to the cognoscenti among other things, people wonder aloud whether we might be using a flyswatter to combat a machine gun? Or if that does not quite capture the spirit of that query, let's say they cannot help but wonder whether we are using a Poet on Hulftsdorp Hill to stop Kudu Naufel from Aluthkade - humbled, and dead in his tracks??

To those who are now beginning to think that there is an attempt here to make light of the whole damnable issue of the deteriorating Rule of Law situation in the country, let's say at the very outset, the intention here is the very opposite. The Rule of Law situation has been grave and dangerous, and indeed it had been approximating farcical proportions far before the assassination of Judge Sarath Ambepitiya. Which is precisely why our reaction has to be deadly serious, and steeped in all of the ramifications and detail of the current social reality. Somehow a forty five minute peroration laced with Eliot and the what-not and la-de-da regarding the cognoscenti, seems therefore in many ways to represent what's wrong in our society and not what's right.

In plain terms, are we a society that cannot for a moment drop our obeisance to social elites, to 19th century English poets, to the assorted 'cognoscenti', to Dicey and Hamilton and to Acton and Coleridge etc., and get on with the job? "My god,'' exclaimed my neighbour, "I thought we came for a seminar on the deterioration of the Rule of Law.''

But there wasn't a single speaker - - well almost -- who couldn't stop spewing quotes from one celestial English deity after another - - Hamilton, Dicey et al and the whole departed pantheon who would have had a field day, lolling in their receptive mokshas enjoying the whale of a time they have been posthumously accorded in this tropical post-colonial paradise going by the appropriately exotic name of Sri Lanka.

This probably is exactly the kind of response to deteriorating law and order, that makes young people want to walk away saying 'this society is never going to change.'' Sad, but true, and that's the response that was conveyed by a great many young people in that audience last Tuesday to this writer. There was one speaker, we think it was the Chairman, who said that he as a civil servant who is in his twilight years (or something to that effect) was very happy that he was with some of his contemporaries who were making some very erudite contributions (or something to that effect again…) to the burning issues of our time.

This, though probably it was not the intention of the speaker, hit the point home. In effect this forum was largely of a section of civil servants and various other luminaries close to retirement or already retired, contemplating on the monumental failure that they had bequeathed as a generation to the large mass of bewildered youth who are in shock at the kind of society that they have to takeover and manage - while not being so much in awe at the exalted civil service and courtroom celebrities who are bequeathing such a society to them.

On point of detail it is correct that Rohan Edrisinghe, or Radhika Coomraswamy who were panelists on this occasion do not fall into the above categories. Nor do a few of the others. But it is the mean temperature of the event that we are interested in here -- and the median quantity of the response especially from among the younger members of that audience. The general response was; "so here we go again. We are going on a cerebral roller coaster, allowing luminaries to disport themselves and letting their generally unquestioning supplicants say Namaskar, so we can all go home and say 'we are doing our part for the Rule of Law - - so open that bottle of champagne will you?'''

Well, at least that was the general gist of reactions, and if so why so? Since a columnist is so graciously entitled to do it, I shall strike a personal note - - it was a known alternative medicine physician, a very gracious lady by the name of Sylvia Perera attached to the Kalubowila hospital who once told me "young people should enjoy themselves and rejoice in everything that life has to offer - - and let the older people do the hard and onerous work of running society because the young should not have to bother with all of that.''

Philosophically speaking, I was in total agreement, and still am, which is why I conveyed this same sentiment later to Mr W. B. A. Jayasekera one of the grand men of our civil society agit-prop campaign fronts, who has certainly done his bit for the betterment of Sri Lankan society - - even though my apologies are due to him here, for he certainly was one of the people responsible for organizing the seminar in question.

Another time I read, even though this may be to strike one personal note too many, a Letter to the Editor by a retired public servant who went onto say "when you are young, do what you want to do and enjoy your life - - so that when you are old like me, you will not regret the things you never did, and cannot do any longer.''

So - - going by the conventional wisdom as represented in those two personal notes, society should leave it to retiring or retired public servants or the exalted though fading luminaries of our time, to drip the discourse in their infinite wisdom, and let the young enjoy the fruits of their labours - - while of course not forgetting to applaud politely at the correct places..

But surely, times can sometimes be so sinister, that indeed the conventional wisdom needs to be turned on its head? If the Rule of Law situation is deteriorating to the point that the young cannot contemplate in the near future a guaranteed good night's sleep let alone enjoying their lives --- then shouldn't society demand far more efficient solutions than some that the aging denizens of this society - - who mind you are responsible for placing us in this mess (collectively of course and not individually) - - have to offer?

If you are running away with the idea that we are getting too radical here - -- please do not. It was in this above cited spirit that young and rebellious men such as Fidel Castro Che Guvera and Mao Tse Tung inveighed against the established order, and finally managed to overturn elite entrenched systems so moribund, and so steeped in their old and disturbingly feeble ways that they notoriously could not correct themselves.

And what more old ways can a society have, than one represented by a legal luminary quoting T. S. Eliot while on the subject of the Rule of Law and the Role of the judiciary? Make no mistake - - we are sure that not just H. L. De Silva but all panelists on that day were very well intentioned, that they had their hearts in the right place. But that's hardly the point.

The point is that impossible problems needed revolutionary solutions -- and though we are not advocating the Che type of insurgent putsch here for wresting power and control from the elites - - what palpably needs to be said and reiterated is that the old order needs to change. True that the assembled gathering resolved to appoint a Committee to look into the Rule of Law issue, and another panelist said her organization will appoint its own Committee, but for us watching from the boundary lines, this is such a long drawn out and boring test-match that will almost certainly lead to the same result - - another tame draw. As the speaker's themselves said, the same sense of accomplishment accompanied the ballyhooed and trumpeted 17th Amendment, and now we know where that piece of judicial engineering has got us to. Another thing. Think of a Rule of Law seminar that doesn't even mention some of the most galling transgressions of judicial propriety of our times - for example one that has been mentioned by the UN rapporteuers and taken up in international courts??

No hard boiled cynic worth his salt will be impressed, Ladies and Gentlemen, by such a knee-jerk exercise, but let's hope wistfully that hard boiled cynics are for what its worth, wrong for once.

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