Is our justice system bringing wrongdoers to trial enough or, is the system itself on trial?
In our modern republic’s chequered history we have experienced much murder, robbery and, torture, in addition to the bloodshed of successive insurgencies. But how much, in repeated governmental endeavours for ‘justice’, have we cleansed our society of this uncivilised behaviour?
Citizens are aware of the horror and depravities inflicted on fellow Sri Lankans and, those with longer life experience, are burdened with memories of violence, sudden tragedy and, loss. But how much are we reassured by the seeming responses by our leaders and institutions, the commitments announced and, actions taken to remedy this failure of Sri Lankan civilisation?
One of our greatest Presidents once famously described the worst ever ethnic riots that beset our nation as a “crisis of civilisation”. That was in 1983. And that cataclysm led to the exploding of a simmering ethnic conflict into secessionist war. Today, our nation has survived, albeit barely, not only that war but also a similarly consequential crisis of democracy. After all these decades of ethnic conflict and authoritarianism, citizens have come to hope and expect the nation’s leadership and its institutions to rise to the challenge of resolution and remedy, of justice and reconciliation.
The promises made of renewal of democracy and, the resolution of grievances and pervasive crime, have been taken very seriously by a citizenry that has matured as an upwardly mobile, educated and, politically aware society. A nation newly appreciative of its socio-economic progress, however limited, wants to see similar progress in its political life. The institutions of governance, justice and, law and order must deliver and be seen to deliver.
Political and bureaucratic plunderers and other administrative criminals may now be facing retribution, however slow. But citizens are yet to see a parallel movement in the resolution of the murders, ‘disappearances’, abductions, torture and, unjust incarcerations that have been perpetrated by politicians, especially when holding governmental power and, by state personnel, particularly the police and the armed forces.
When whole governments decide to inflict ‘dirty war’ on its opponents – often irrespective of whether its opponents are violent insurgents or civilian critics and dissenters – the state institutions used for this repression end up permeated with those same sins of cruel and despotic behaviour perpetrated by the politicians.
How many cases of political murder, disappearances, abductions and ransom suspected to have been committed by members of the police and armed forces have actually been prosecuted to their logical conclusion of conviction and sentencing? There has been so much of this violent political crime that there is a veritable mountain of investigations and prosecutions. Sometimes the same suspects are involved in overlapping cases.
The Lasantha Wickramatunga assassination is perhaps the most prominent such case of political murder where, even years after the act, our system of justice has progressed little in its investigation and prosecution. To date, not a single perpetrator of violence against journalists have been convicted.
The reasons for the delay or inaction are too often due to either cover-up within officialdom itself or to interference by political superiors. This interference by other actors and the survival of many a perpetrator of political crimes because of such intervention has too often been a feature of the management of justice in this country.
The scale of the violent political repression, especially during the last regime, has been large and the sheer number of the perpetrators is likewise high. Tellingly, though, the number of police and military personnel who have been successfully apprehended as suspects is pitifully small. Too often the public is informed of suspects on the run, some mysteriously forewarned.
The whereabouts of some such fugitives from justice are sometimes known but there are mysterious delays in their apprehension. Bureaucratic excuses are repeated before exasperated judges. Worse, politicians or senior officers are implicated in helping absconders.
President Maithripala Sirisena last week bemoaned these delays in the criminal justice system with particular reference to the frequent delays by the police investigators in either diligently pursuing investigations or in apprehending suspects. President Sirisena, as well as his political colleagues in this National Unity regime, all collectively committed themselves to precisely that very expediting of justice when they came to power, and that was three years ago – three years too long for those victimised by the repression now being supposedly redressed.
It is up to the country’s political leadership to go beyond platitudes and bravely act to bring succour to the victims of injustice even when sometimes their own colleagues or kin or associates of colleagues or bureaucratic underlings are involved. By their own actions, our leaders must demonstrate to the world that no one is above the Law in this Dharma Dveepa.
With the United Nations Human Rights Council yet monitoring our systems of governance and their promised delivery of remedies to repression and misgovernance, there is danger that the justice system itself may be a victim of unjust and unwise politics. In the eyes of the nation and the world, the system itself is on trial.