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There is a question that hangs heavy in the air when President Anura Kumara Dissanayake sees fit to passionately pronounce in Parliament (as he did in a deftly timed surprise visit a few days ago) that the Government has taken most ‘forward looking steps’ to address the Sri Lankan State’s accountability and human rights deficit since coming to power more than ten months ago.

What is new in the President’s rhetoric?

Could the President be so kind as to enlighten puzzled segments of the Sri Lankan citizenry less inclined to greet empty political rhetoric with rapturously sycophantic cheers, as to what exactly these ‘forward looking steps are’? Certainly his reiteration that the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and amendment of the Online Safety Act (OSA) is the ‘position’ of his Government is well and good. But what exactly is new in all of this?

Simply put, the point is that ‘intent’ is a very different creature from ‘action’ as not only the law but also ordinary common sense tells us. So again, we return to the question as what are these ‘steps’ that the President talks about? That is perplexing to say the least as both the PTA and the OSA are being actively worked by the National Peoples’ Power (NPP) Government to harass and intimidate Sri Lankans, ranging from ordinary citizens protesting against Israel’s ‘apartheid’ policies in Gaza to journalists and activists.

Some of these cases were discussed in these spaces recently; they include young Muslim men detained for months under the PTA for no rhyme or reason other than ‘criticizing Israel.’ And where are the President’s ‘progressive steps’ evidenced when a Tamil journalist actively reporting on the atrocity of the Chemmani mass grave site is forcibly dragged into the harsh headlights of state intelligence agents as reported a few days before the President’s address?

Deep State Surveillance of the NPP

Abruptly being summoned by intelligence officers of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) who visit the journalist’s residence and follow him on accusations of ‘blackening the country’s name internationally’ is scarcely a reassuring indication of NPP ‘system change.’ Suffice it to be said that whatever ‘blackening’ of Sri Lanka’s ‘name’ has anyway occurred through the actions of state agents who seem perfectly capable of accomplishing this without help from external agents.

So, what is the difference between deep state surveillance in the name of the PTA under previous Governments and what is occurring now? As reminded repeatedly, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led NPP’s promise to enact a new law to replace the PTA is not a sufficient discharge of its burden of ‘system change.’ And what of the Government’s oft repeated assurance to establish an Office of a Special Prosecutor to deal with extraordinary human rights abuses?

Perhaps the President might refrain from thundering to the citizenry about ‘State intent’ in that regard till practice and policy is fundamentally changed. That is essential before the naturally skeptical among us believe in starry eyed proclamations of politicians. Meanwhile his Prime Minister has announced that the NPP will soon draft a ‘people-oriented’ Constitution. That declaration begs another searching question; what of the reported intent by the NPP to further politicize Sri Lanka’s independent constitutional and statutory oversight commissions?

What form would a people’s friendly Constitution take?

So, would that push for a ‘peoples friendly’ face include the NPP’s intent to change the composition of civil society members on the Constitutional Council each time a ‘Prime Minister changes’? This is in the wake of pronounced annoyance on the part of Government politicians in not being able to have its own way in regard to choosing party political loyalists to fill crucial seats in public office. Is that the realisation of a ‘steadfast commitment to democratic principles’ that the Prime Minister referred to?

It would have been good if President Dissanayake had elaborated on this ‘intent’ to cripple independent governance oversight, won with great difficulty through successive constitutional amendments, when he addressed Parliament this week. In fact, when one of his key Ministers protested that the Government had only miss-stepped so far in ‘mis-pronouncing English or in wearing a tie wrong’, that is a dangerously poison laced misrepresentation which must be corrected forthwith. In essence, this assertion goes to the core of the JVP-NPP’s charade of being ‘non-elitist.’

That is none other than a pitifully transparent attempt to strike a chord with its natural constituency in Sri Lanka’s ‘upwardly mobile middle class,’ a core electoral attraction. But the damage that the Government threatens to inflict upon constitutional systems imposing a balance of power is perhaps worse than its ‘elitist’ predecessors. For if the NPP, which came to power on a seductive platform of ‘system change’ can unapologetically parade its ‘intent’ to require party loyalty as the requirement for public office, what does this say for its bona fides?

Peeling back layers of a rotten onion

Indeed, sometimes one prefers the openly aggrandizing and power hungry political push of the Rajapaksa juggernaut where the malicious intent is unmistakable rather than these highly hypocritical meanderings that are ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ as the Bard famously said. In a critical reflection early last year on the many commissions and omissions of the Wickremesinghe Presidency, I had remarked that unearthing accountability in Sri Lanka is akin to peeling away multiple layers of a rotten onion (‘Sri Lanka’s fresh Truth Commission; so what else is new?’ Focus on Rights, the Sunday Times, January 7th 2024).

To recapitulate, ‘first, the stench overwhelms you; secondly, each layer is correspondingly more decayed than the previous; finally, one is left with the core which is but a revolting mass of pulpy nothingness, to be consigned to the dustbin.’ At that time, the police had arrested protestors of Tamil ethnicity heckling the President on a visit to Jaffna in classic state ‘over-reach’ that was slightly ridiculous. But the Wickremesinghe-Rajapksa regime’s systemic manipulation of the law to entrench inequity remains true of this Government as well.

Deeply entrenched state security and police structures still operate at their whim and fancy. As the Supreme Court observed in (Weheragedera Ranjith Sumangala v Bandara, Police Officer and others, SCM 14.12.2023), ‘wrongdoers – specially the big fish in the pond – are seldom held duly accountable.’ At the time, the public officials in the crosshairs of enraged scrutiny were former Public Security Minister Tiran Alles and then Acting IGP Deshabandu Tennekoon who was appointed despite being implicated in the torture of a suspect.

Where are the Godfather/s of the former IGP?

Mr Tennekoon was impeached in Parliament this week in another first for Sri Lanka’s pockmarked governance record with the President approving his removal thereafter. But what of the ‘Godfathers’ behind the disgraced head of Sri Lanka’s police, one must ask? The law under which Parliament acted to impeach Mr Tennekoon was, as we may recall, the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act, No 5 of 2002 which was ancillary legislation to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution (2001).

This was a constitutional amendment which the JVP supported initially under the Kumaratunga Presidency and then, when entities such as the National Police Commission started acting independently in interdicting police officers indicted of torture, actively undermined. That Amendment was later reduced to a mockery by the Mahinda Rajapaksa Presidency through the 18th Amendment (2010) which was again reversed by the 19th Amendment (2015). So the torturous list goes on with the 20th Amendment (2020) reversing the 19th Amendment with the current amendment being the 21st Amendment (2022) to the nonsensical periodical that has become the Constitution of Sri Lanka as the famously ribald saying goes.

When will this veritable constitutional circus end? Certainly not (we hope) in another version of the discredited 18th/20th Amendments to the Constitution.