There Are No Half Hearted Dictators
Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena
Dictators do not believe in half hearted measures. This is an essential lesson that Sri Lanka is now learning at a painful cost. We were immeasurably too ignorant, too consumed by self interest or too stubborn to realize this until it was too late.
Dismal reality of the absence of law
This week, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa locks horns with the country’sJudicial Service Commission (JSC) over a few incredibly minimal demonstrations of judicial independence, these lessons assume great significance.
This is so, not only for judges and lawyers. Indeed, such reflection is vital if we wish to live in a country where basic law and order prevails, whether high constitutional governance or pedestrian land and traffic disputes are concerned. And to be perfectly clear, we fail miserably in that regard. Spiraling crime, politicians, political brats and their thugs who commit mayhem, the corresponding breakdown in law and order, uninvestigated attacks on medical personnel, the exponential increase in land frauds, rapes of children and women by local government politicians who are generally let off on bail together with almost daily protests by farmers, trade unionists, university teachers and students among others, bear this out. Gleaming new roads, spruced up cities, perennial cricket matches and mushrooming five star hotels cannot quite hide that uncomfortable fact.
