Natural Justice By The Wayside In Public-Interest Litigation?
Dr. Rohan Samarajiva
To respond to a question in your publication about whether people had spoken out against Sarath Silva‘s behavior while CJ, I looked for old pieces. I found a piece I had written for Montage and another published in the Mirror. Sadly, no longer available on the web.
Natural justice by the wayside in public-interest litigation?
A former President was found to have abused her powers and fined. A powerful government official was drummed out of all his positions. A conglomerate was compelled to reverse a lucrative privatization transaction. A land deal, suspect from the start, was annulled. Electricity prices were reduced, perhaps. Noise pollution is stopped, maybe.
Draconian TV licensing and control regulations have been stayed. Charging for polythene bags by supermarkets has been prohibited. The selective extension of retirement age was reversed. The relevant actors are being pushed to implement the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.
The recent hyper-activism of the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates of public-interest litigation. It is seen as the one place where justice will be done; where decisions will be taken; the one element that works in a dysfunctional system.
Fumbles are rarely recalled. School admission is as broken as ever. Even the appearance of resolution was lacking when the Court tried to resolve salary anomalies so Advanced-Level exam scripts could be marked without delay.
It is not that the Supreme Court has been supremely effective, but the overall impression is highly positive. But is justice being done?
Let us take a case seen as one of the greatest successes of the Silva Court, the ruling made on the privatization of Lanka Marine Services Limited in an application under Article 126 of the Constitution made by Mr Vasudeva Nanayakkara (SC/FR 209/2007).
