You Reap What You Sow: Dedicated To, For Those Who Anticipate Marvels From Judiciary
Ashan Nanayakkara
The history of mankind has always set finer examples how men of those years have successfully reacted to turbulent times, again and again. Either it may be pandemic, war, natural disaster or in any other dire straits people have lived so far. If historians’ reports are correct, Mohenjo-daro was boomed in Indu Valley Civilization after catastrophic flood of Indus River which inundated the most parts of Harappa city bringing an end to that colonization. Thus, “Up and down this world goes round, down, The world goes up and down, Up and down the world goes…”
Though not that much Churchilian or ‘we fight them in beaches’ type, spirited speech; Boris Johnson’s (who is corona positive now) address to the nation on 25-03-2020 was remarkable. Instead of myriad of flamboyant words, even President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seems to have rendered note-worthy impact to tackle the situation in this crunch hour, by actions, thus far. Whereas had that been the ex-President (Sirisena, as all call him) who was famous to be as a moaning-Minnie, it would have been all mouth and no trousers. Therefore, during this pandemic time, Sri Lanka is doing, so far so good.
Nevertheless, the question is, from here, whither to? Government have declared curfew in width and breadth of the Country. They have also notified to ‘stay at home’ policy to avoid contracting Covid-19 among its citizen. For the first time in history one can help to the word by sitting on before on your TV like a couch Potato. Additionally, the Government have earmarked, Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Jaffna districts as high risk zones and imposed curfew until further notice; for other areas in the country it is planned to lift the curfew on Monday (29th March) at 6.00am and have it again from 12.00pm. Hence, from the economic perspective, she is doing very bad and looming of a rescission in near future notwithstanding either we cope this pandemic or not.
In this premise, a special revelation was made by the Government Medical Organization (GMO) on 24-03-2020 and highlighted that there may be a chance of about 19 000-people, who are, at the moment, under quarantine process, who are so fragile to be reported as Covid-19 cases in coming days, as they have one way or other way contacted with the current cases (number of them are by 28-03-2020, 106-patients). This finding was based on a research out by Johns Hopkins University – USA. Further, GMO have predicted that unless citizens of this country act according to the rigid advices that they have been asked to follow, the current figures of 106-infected patients will increase during 25th March to 07th April in thick and fast. Even the GMO fear the most is that if Sri Lanka cannot keep herself within its limits, the infected cases could multiple in numbers like zombies of ‘Resident Evil’ to its ‘threshold capacity’ and loose it out from our control.
Having faced to such a dreadful fate upon us, except the sheer labour and some common sense that most of the Service Personal, Doctors, Nurses, Public Health Inspectors (PHI) etc. extend by putting with their blood, sweat and tears, which are in fact yeoman sacrifice, Sri Lanka seem not to go forward from this calamity. Neither did her, even before this disease came!
When Sri Lanka was lagging behind, world has overcome so many bad patches in the history line. The world has become such a pleasant place to live due to some magnificent creations and inventions made by people in not-so-good situations. There were so many ways that courageous men have greeted disasters! For such examples, in the First World War – a doctor of Royal Army Medical Corps compelled to do the worlds’ first plastic surgery in 1917, canned food was invented by one France National called, Nicolas Appert under Napoleon era for the purpose of transporting food to soldiers and war affected people, the AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova was invented owing to II World War, the mechanical ventilators used in health sector were started to use in masse due to Polio disease which marred during 1930s, the importance of Surgeons was recognized over Physicians only after ‘Black Death’ due to the practical value of the former, Land Rover Series I was made by British – Rover Company, aftermath to World War II during which period there was no demand for luxury vehicles due to recession and the difficulty of finding raw materials, accidentally found ‘Penicillin’ had also become most splendid creation in medical sector was only produced in industrial level for growing demand of those who succumbed to injuries in 2nd World War, modern Computer, Radar and some vaccines like Rubella, Measles were also discovered in troublesome times when people were pushed against the wall. And the said list goes on. Thus, more often than not, world has progressed through such challenging times.
In Sri Lanka, only silver lining is, as it was discussed at the all party conference convened by the Prime Minister, held few days back that the Engineering Faculty of Peradeniya University has been requested to commence manufacturing, or explore the avenues of creating Ventilators in domestic level which are highly valuable more than Black Gold as far as saving the lives of those who have contagion with Covid-19 is concerned. Those who manufactured Sri Lanka’s first, all-electric super car, ‘Vega’, epitomizes that we as a nation is not in a scarcity of talents, skills and the technology; for a moment we need not to doubt it. Vis-à-vis, political patronage, is a proven failure in this Island nation. Thus, “We can”, “they can”, “President can”, Ranil cannot”, “Sajith is dump”, “JVP is capable of” are sham words. One common thing in our rulers is all have tested failed since independence. Thus, it is just the citizen and the individuals who have to spearhead. That’s about the Politics amidst this plague.
Of law and order, except the police personnel, which represents one arm of the legal system, who work burning mid-night oil whilst the Government have even cancelled their leaves, no other sector function in legal arena. The Judiciary, the one organ of the State has gone to a complete blackout (of course not just the Judiciary, the Legislature – the other organ of the State too).
Although, initially, it was the order of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and Honourable the Chief Justice to take up urgent matters and give audience exclusively to the Advocates to prevent the litigants flocking to court houses in numbers, have also gone aborted after curfew was imposed in country wide. As a result, from the most apex court of the country – the Supreme Court, second highest court in the country, that is, Court of Appeal, High Courts of Provinces, District Courts and Magistrate’s Courts stopped hearing their cases hence forth. The cases which were supposed to have called in routine basis shall be given the automatic further dates which shall also be informed in due course. In short, cases are postponed sine die. The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and Honourable the Chief Justice have ordered to the Magistrates to enterprise ad-hoc mechanisms by their own, as per the facilities that they possess and the work force they have in their court houses to take up special matters like, Bail applications, or any other urgent matters using electronic means, such as Skype, Whatsapp, Viber etc. Wherefore, it seems that except the Magistrates of respective areas who seem to have no such luxury of having such an enforced vacation, rest of the courts are filled with just empty chairs, and empty cells filled with rats.
Having said the Government declared that the entire country must work at home. Further, JSC too expected to dispose the matters during this curfew period by using day-to-day communications apparatus like, Skype, Whatsapp, Viber etc. Is this possible in this country?
