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Are pardons issued to prisoners convicted of grave monetary crimes or corrupt acts by the President of Sri Lanka acceptable simply because they are issued as part of group presidential pardons granted on numerous religious holidays that scatter our national calendar?

 Not just a pardon of a minor offender

This question is asked whimsically following a peculiar response by the Department of Prisons this Friday over a public furore concerning a Vesak Day pardon issued by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to a private bank manager recently convicted by the Anuradhapura High Court of swindling close to four million rupees from his unfortunate victims. The Prisons Department has blandly sought to explain the pardon as one of ‘many others’ issued on a religious holiday.

That is however an exceptionally stupid ‘clarification’ that leads one to ask, ‘with friends like these, what is the need for the President to have enemies’? Obviously the fact that this pardon was one of many others has little bearing on the act itself. Apparently this fraudster, reportedly a deserter from the Navy, has been implicated in several other cases of serious financial fraud, some of which are pending before the Court.

So, in what way would this pardon impact on other pending cases against him? What message does this pass to the Court deliberating on these matters? The convict, a private bank manager, had been taken into custody more than a decade ago for defrauding investors of close to one billion rupees. This was by obtaining the money on the basis of investing in government securities and the stock exchange but instead, lending the deposits to third parties for a higher interest rate.

What is the NPP’s policy on fraudsters? 

This fraud had continued for several years until the interest rates of some depositors had stopped who had then complained to the police.  All in all, this was far from a minor offence but amounted to serious financial fraud, the inquiry into which was taken over the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) whose efforts led to a prosecution and a recent conviction. This incident is just one of hundreds of similar such instances in Sri Lanka with a recent arrest involving a clerk of a state bank.

But to return to the pardon in question, the Presidential Secretariat has urgently clarified that the contested pardon has been referred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for inquiry as this convict’s name has not been in the list of the prisoners sent to the President on that day. This is a claim that is as incredible as it is astounding. It remains to be seen as to what this inquiry will lead to.

The bigger question concerns the lack of criteria in regard to the granting of pardons by the President under Article 34 (1) of the Constitution in instances where the convict does not have a death sentence served on him/her. Of course, even where convicts with death sentences are concerned, the impunity with which Presidents of Sri Lanka have granted pardons to select political favourites has attracted fierce public controversy.

The lacunae in Article 34(1) of the Constitution

Among these incidents, the presidential pardons of Duminda Silva, Jude Shramantha Jayamaha and Sunil Ratnayake, all various characters convicted of the most horrendous crimes, stand out. The third convict (Ratnayake, a former soldier) had been found guilty of participating in a communal massacre of several Tamil internally displaced persons including a child during the conflict period (Mirusovil, 2000). In these cases, the question has pivoted around adherence to the proviso to Article 34 (1).

This proviso stipulates that where any offender has been served with a death sentence, a report by the trial Judges must be forwarded to the Attorney General for advice and then sent to the Justice Minister for recommendation. It is only after these reports are placed before the President and taken into account that a considered decision must be made. Excellent cautionary principles have been laid down by the Supreme Court in how the President must conform to constitutional safeguards.

In Premachandra and Others v the Attorney General and Others, (SC Minute of 17.01.2024, per Justice Padman Surasena), the Bench set aside a 2021 pardon granted by former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to politician Duminda Silva on the basis that this was, inter alia, an arbitrary and irrational exercise of constitutional discretion. The Rajapaksa pardon was granted to Silva following a 2016 majority verdict of the High Court (later upheld on appeal) for the murder of another parliamentarian.

No ‘unfettered’ presidential power in issue

On a comprehensive examination of relevant documents which indicated that constitutional safeguards had been disregarded, the Court summarily dismissed an argument for the former President that immunity prevented the Court from reviewing the presidential act in question. A substantive review of the circumstances in which the pardon was granted was within the remit of the Court and the impugned pardon was not a lawful exercise of executive power.

Where the Rajapaksa presidential pardon of Ven Galagoda Gnanasara, a controversial monk who was convicted for contempt of court in 2018 is concerned, similar questions of propriety arise as in the case of the Dissanayake pardon even though both these cases does not involve the offence of murder. Based on the Premachandra precedent (2024), there cannot be unfettered exercise of presidential power.

On the contrary, a presidential pardon (even in general) must pass the test of ‘rationality, reasonableness, intelligible and objective criteria). Even so, the radical amendment of Article 34 of the Constitution under which the much abused presidential pardon powers are exercised, is called for. This may be included in the raft of legal reforms that the National People’s Power Government is reportedly drawing up.

Keeping the Government’s feet to the crucible

The revisions must prescribe far more stringent safeguards for the issuance of presidential pardons. That will obviate ‘mistaken’ inclusion of pardons of persons convicted of serious crimes if the Dissanayake pardon indeed belonged in that category. Let us see whether the NPP Government will be equal to the task.

Meanwhile we may not waste much time over the main opposition raising this question now, given its silence when murderers were pardoned during the time that they were occupying the seats of power. Just as much as the Government must be ruthlessly scrutinized over its performance, the opposition’s hypocritical hysteria over the Dthis pardon must be taken with a pinch of salt.

But more so, those who dismiss this controversy as unimportant on the grand scheme of the NPP’s ‘socialist revolution’ must be taken to task. A palpable danger arises in being wilfully blind to the follies of politicians, whether out of misplaced loyalties, desperation due to ‘no other alternative’ or otherwise. There is a touch of déjà vu in this given the eagerness with which supporters cheer a new political regime, glossing over its faults.

This was evident in full measure in 2019 (the ‘viyath maga’ revolution of the Rajapaksas) and in 2025 (the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe ‘good governance’ farce). Scathing critiques of that disastrous coalition (2015-2019) in these column spaces, were met with pleas of ‘this is too soon, give them time.’ That was at the very same time that the first Central Bank bond scam was being perpetuated right under the noses of Wickremesinghe cheerleaders.

Have we not learnt any lessons even now?