The politics, economics and fundamental rights of grand corruption in Sri Lanka
by Rajan Philips-May 23, 2015
Truisms are an easy way to start an essay. I will try a few today. Corruption has always been a fact of life in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. In the pyramid of society, corruption is not uncommon in the creation of wealth by a few, in the accumulation of the niceties of life by those in the middle, as well as in the struggle for survival among the majority of bottom feeders. Cross-country studies on corruption in the context of globalization differentiate between "low-level opportunistic payoffs" and "grand corruption." And ‘grand’ corruption is known to have found a fertile political terrain associated with a certain constitutional order and an electoral system. I make bold to say that Sri Lankans have experienced grand corruption and its fertile political terrain more intimately than their fusion might have been studied more objectively elsewhere. To assert another truism, the fight against corruption has traditionally been brutal at the bottom, so-so in the middle, and wink-wink at the top. But when the fight is against grand corruption the usual wink-wink at the top gives way to forensic grandstanding over fundamental rights in the courts. We are starting to see that in real time in Sri Lanka.
