Columns

Addressing Parliament this week following stinging public anger regarding his Government’s inability to effectively mitigate as well as manage the deadly impact of Cyclone Ditwah leaving hundreds dead, thousands displaced and wreaking unprecedented destruction particularly in the Central and Uva Provinces, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake brushed away alarm over the possibility of emergency law being employed against the media, referring to an ‘unnecessary fuss.’

Political accountability in issue

‘We are not bothered by criticism, why should we use emergency law?’ he questioned, as if the controversy had been conjured out of thin air by his less then friendly detractors. But this is hardly the case, despite adroit presidential wordplay. This fracas did not suddenly develop as much as a devastating cyclone did not hit like the proverbial thunderbolt for Ministers to wail ’What could we have done? We cannot prevent cyclones.’ In one as in the other instance, the accountability of the Government or more correctly, the lack thereof is in issue.

The use of emergency law to curb public criticism of politicians has a long and chequered history. In the first instance, the President’s query must be directed inwards. More specifically, he needs to question his deputy minister of public security who expressed horror over ‘mud being slung’ at his Commander-in-Chief and instructed the police to ‘crack down’ forthwith. Another deputy minister (tasked to handle the media portfolio) was sitting by him at that point. Do these deputy ministers articulate an official policy line or do they not?

Even more mystifyingly, the deputy minister informed the police in the manner of making a grand pronouncement, that persons arrested under Sri Lanka’s emergency regulations are considered not as ‘suspects’ but as ‘accused’. From what legal rule or provision does this extraordinary assertion stem? The claim is a perversion of the constitutional rights of citizens, particularly the very several parts of Article 13 of the Constitution under which the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down emergency regulations.

Strategic tactics or mixed signals?

This is not a village level politician nattering away at a street corner. What is the accountability of the Government? Was this minister, a lawyer to all intents and purposes, unaware of the gravity of his claims? Or, as seems to be more the case, was the statement made deliberately? Such statements cannot be washed away by Presidential pooh-poohing an ‘unnecessary fuss.’ And I return to that question again, are these sycophantic political remarks all there is to it?  Or is the Government’s ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine, a strategic tactic?

Soon after this plainly wrong reading of the law, the police spokesperson announced that several persons had been arrested for ‘misinformation’. What this ‘misinformation’ was, we were not told. If the arrests were of persons who tried to ‘spread fear among flood affected communities’ or those interfering with flood relief supplies, this is well and good. But there is yet eminently ‘necessary’ concern in that respect. That links up with the over-breadth of the 2025 emergency regulations.

It appears that as much as the JVP led NPP Government is faithfully following the emergency laws of the Ranil Wickremesinghe Presidency that it once railed against, similar to its economic policies. At the outset, one must distinguish between the declaration of a state of emergency and what regulations are gazetted thereafter. In certain instances, though a state of emergency may be justified, that same generosity may not extend to the content of regulations. The 2022 regulations to control the ‘aragalaya’ (peoples struggle) is one such example.

Troubling emergency regulations

Opinion remains divided as to whether a state of emergency was required notwithstanding an unconvincingly reasoned majority judgment of the Supreme Court earlier this year that the 2022 Proclamation of a state of public emergency under Section 2 of the Public Security Ordinance (PSO) was unconstitutional. This is probably why President Dissanayake was at pains to explain why he had to use the PSO in 2025. That being said, that ruling contains a useful obiter dictum reprimand in respect of ‘stereotypical and repetitive’ emergency regulations.

The 2022 regulations were not judicially assessed at the time though there was little doubt that its content gravely infringed constitutional rights. In 2025, that same legal dysfunction prevails. Few would cavil at resorting to the PSO given the severity of Cyclone Ditwah. An out-dated Disaster Management Act (2005) did not serve the purpose and as the President explained, the Council had not met for several years. Regardless, questions remain over the content of the 2025 emergency regulations.

Space constraints prevent a detailed analysis but it is troubling that ‘endeavouring’ to cause ‘dissatisfaction’ among public officers and those ‘performing public duties’ is made an offence regardless of the imprecise nature of these terms. Puzzlingly, the admissibility of confessions to senior police officers has popped up; a chilling feature of the national security regime. The burden to prove that the confession was not ‘voluntarily made’ is on that person. In a climate emergency, what need arises to extract ‘confessions’ above the ordinary criminal law?

Adequate warnings of a cyclonic storm

There is a déjà vu tinge to all of this which brings to mind the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks by home-grown jihadists on churches and hotels where the Security Council had neither (properly) met nor taken adequate precautions despite intelligence warnings. And so we come to the second and far more important question of the accountability of the Government and the Cabinet. True, all Sri Lankan Governments along with public officials have catastrophically failed where climate disaster management is concerned.

In fact, the so-called ‘prediction’ issued on Wednesday 12th November by a garrulous Meteorology Department Chief, was equivocal, referring to ‘indirect’ impact of a low-pressure system and shying away from using the ‘C’ word (cyclone). But elsewhere, there were adequate warnings. On Thursday 20th November, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted a ‘cyclogenesis’ situation, sharing regular updates with Sri Lanka and other countries, (‘Why Cyclone Ditwah caused large scale damage in Sri Lanka’, the Indian Express, December 5th 2025).

International weather stations had also predicted massive amounts of rainfall. The Department of Irrigation itself woke up sufficiently on Tuesday 25th November to issue warnings. Though the Minister of Public Security protested that ‘all possible steps’ had been taken from that point, we remain un-persuaded. Those few days were crucial, name-ly between Tuesday 25th November and midnight Friday 28th November, at which point essential services along with a State of Emergency were belatedly declared.

Test of a Government is to operate governance systems

Put simply, if those measures had been taken earlier, the calamitous dithering of government agencies would have been avoided. Instead, separate Departments issued ‘routine warnings’ disregarded by its target citizenry leading to a perfect cyclonic storm of unimaginable severity. Moreover and despite drawbacks, local and district level systems do work in the event of climate emergencies even if public officials and ministers sleep on the job. Why did those systems fail so spectacularly in November 2025?

That is so even granted the extreme nature of Cyclone Ditwah. Who now sits in the chair of the District Secretary and Divisional Secretaries when emergencies hit? The duty list of the President is not to direct a helicopter to be diverted here or the air force to airlift civilians there. These telecasts, to show a President in charge, establish exactly the opposite. And Sri Lankans really do not need maudlin commendations by politicians on ‘their resilience in times of crisis.’

This country has exhibited that resilience well, learning through bitter experiences in the face of betrayals by elected representatives. Competence and capacity must be demonstrated in operating governance systems, not clinging to party systems. That is the stern meaning and positive effect of ‘system change.’

Certainly the Government has not acquitted itself very well in that respect, if we are to be gentle about it.