5th Column

My dear Anura sahodaraya,

I thought of writing to you while you rub shoulders with the high and mighty in Germany. Reading newspaper headlines one day this week, I was amused. “Anura meets German President”, one said.  “Ranil at CID”, said another headline. A few months ago, it could have been the other way around!

The reason I am writing to you is all this hullabaloo about a presidential pardon. Opposition parties are saying that on Vesak day, you granted a pardon to someone who had been convicted of a financial crime just 10 days earlier. Moreover, he is from your home district of Anuradhapura, we are told.

Presidents pardoning convicts on questionable grounds is nothing new to us. I think old JR included that in the Constitution because he thought he was king and wanted to rule the waves and waive the rules. In fact, it was he who began the trend when he pardoned the infamous Gonawela Sunil.

The older Preme pardoned Manohari Daniels who helped the Tigers to plan the Maradana bomb attack because he wanted to strike a deal with them. We don’t recall either DB or Satellite granting any controversial pardons, and that is in keeping with their trend of not doing anything noteworthy!

Mahinda maama, ever the friend in need, pardoned the wife of Cabinet colleague Milroy’s wife who was convicted of murder, casting aside any considerations of conflict of interest. He also famously pardoned his former Cabinet colleague SB. Even so, these pardons were not criticised much either. 

However, in the presidential pardon stakes, the joint winners were undoubtedly Aiyo Sirisena and Gota maama. Sirisena pardoned Gnanasara hamuduruwo six months before his term ended. More interestingly, just days before he left office, he decided to pardon the Royal Park murderer.

If Aiyo Sirisena was in a rush to pardon people towards the end of his term, Gota maama did so early. First, he pardoned an Army officer convicted of the murder of 8 civilians in Mirusuvil. Then, seeing his former ‘Monitoring MP’ Duminda in jail for murdering Bharatha, he pardoned him.

Even Uncle Ranil was not immune from this pattern of pardoning people. He granted one to Ranjan. While the pros and cons of most of these pardons can be argued, most were done correctly except at least two of them. Guess who got it wrong? Our best two Presidents, Aiyo Sirisena and Gota maama!

The highest court has ruled that pardoning the Royal Park murderer was wrong, ordered Aiyo Sirisena to pay a million rupees and revoked the pardon. They also found that due process was not followed in Duminda’s pardon, sending him back to prison. The Army officer’s pardon is also now under review.

Anura sahodaraya, why we remember all this is because, late last year while you were campaigning for the top job you reminded us of all these events. You also pledged to put a stop to pardons if you won. So, when we heard that you had granted a pardon, we were surprised, shocked and horrified!

Ajith, the ‘telephone’ chap from Kalutara, suggested something sinister about the pardon. Young Namal, forgetting all about how his father granted pardons said you, as the first citizen, should ‘value’ your signature. The Prisons Department didn’t help when it said the pardon granted was above board.

That is why you had to get your sleuths on the job quickly. What they found was even more startling. You certainly hadn’t placed your signature to pardon this chap but there appeared to be quite a few who were ‘pardoned’, including him, by courtesy of the Prisons Department, without your knowledge.

Of course, the opposition would have been disappointed that they couldn’t blame this on you and people like young Namal would have learnt that they should not speak too soon. Still, it is their duty to highlight such issues when they get to know about it and maybe you should be thankful to them.

Others would have heaved a sigh of relief when they realised that you hadn’t followed in the footsteps of your predecessors by granting this pardon. Nevertheless, there are other, important questions that need answers. Does your government know what is going on? Or, are officials still running the show?

As you yourself pointed out, we have our top cop, our Immigration Controller and now our Prisons Commissioner either in remand or on bail. All of them face serious charges. Anura sahodaraya, you may have won three elections, the top job and a two-thirds majority, but officials are still in charge!

It is bad enough that some of your ministers are underperforming and others speak before they think. It is worse when officials, raised on a diet of political patronage for two decades, still believe they are in charge. They need to change, or you need to change them, Anura sahodaraya!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Most of these problems land on your doorstep only because you are Executive President. You solemnly promised to abolish it. We haven’t heard about that recently. I hope you haven’t forgotten that promise. Please get started on it. Now, if I annoyed you with that request, I beg your pardon!