Coming back to the Kangaroo Court of King MR

Why does one get so irked when a bill presented to Parliament is considered Unconstitutional? That is because Kangaroos are supposed to jump into agreement and not into disagreement.

The shock of disagreement that the Govt. put out a bill that was not in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, as envisaged by the devolved powers granted in the 13^th Amendment, both that Amendment is now called into question as well as “revenge” against the CJ in the form of an impeachment.

How would an independent observer who just came to this planet view this action? He would say the act of revenge is very uncivilized especially coming from a President who professes to be a good Buddhist. So that is an independent opinion I would concur with. The easiest step would have been to immediately repeal the 13^th Amendment, so that point of unconstitutionality will be moot. He could then present the 19^th Amendment and grant the minority rights they have been screaming for whilst at the same time doing away with the PC system of waste and excess and another tier of Brigands and Bandits stealing from the People.

That course of action would be very easy wouldn’t it and would not involve too much discussion and will pass in quick time. That is not what the Govt. wants. It wants the people tied up in knots of their own creation, so that they can spend their time quietly looting what is left of the country, with people preoccupied with these impeachments and other irritants.

It is therefore important that especially now when the media is as usual chasing after the wrong story, that the true story be excavated and elaborated upon by the sleepy media. When will Sri Lanka bring back the era of responsible and unbiased journalists who cannot be bought for a few interest free loans to buy the odd car.

Talking about how the journalists were recently bought lock stock and barrel by the Govt. grant of tax concessions on import of vehicles and interest free loans for a car is a clear part of the ploy to persuade the journalists to write other stories. Only in hindsight will be know in later years how much has been done whilst the fourth estate were asleep at the wheel. What do you expect from a Kangaroo Court? Shame on you reporters!

The Prison Riot – why was it so badly handled?

The Governor of the Welikada Prison, I am told requested permanent Security Forces presence in providing security to the prison. What does that mean? I can only surmise.

So what do I surmise. The jailers are all in league, and it is simply called money. They see prisoners who have access to cash. They see them running their empires from inside, they are easily enticed with money to allow them mobile phone access and drugs, long considered part and parcel of prison life in Welikada, especially as the hardcore are convicted drug lords and murderers who have access to money!

No wonder then that the outcome of the raid that will net all the drugs and phones will be the jailors being questioned, fired or transferred. What did they do? They gave the keys to the Armory to the prisoners who helped themselves to all the arms and ammunition they could and brazenly displayed them for all to see.

Surely this whole plan would have been known to the STF who went to search. They are foolish if they could not work that out. So what then happens? There are some killed in shootouts that are legitimate and another 10 or so who are killed as contract killings under instructions from higher ups as they are from the wrong side. After all the Govt. stooges are also engaged in the drug trade, so their enemies on the inside who were causing trouble for them on the outside were simply bumped off in the guise of a prison riot. We will never get at the truth, and this is the modus operandi of every questionable incident where the Govt. is involved.

As to the 5 prisoners unaccounted for who are alleged to have escaped in the melee, I am just assuming it is just a number plucked out of thin air, to find some people and bump them off at the same time, as an escapee. When in fact they could be inside locked up in solitary! We just don’t know but we cannot be sure either as the formula consistently used by the state is one of deception and lies. The sooner we believe the stories put out for our consumption, the sooner we become suckers to a manipulated game of poker, for the ignorant public.

No it was not badly handled. It was right on cue carefully planned and executed in more senses of the word. Why only prisoners were killed!! If they were hardcore adn had guns and ammunition aplenty!!

A Country of Parliamentary Select Committees - For What?

Will Sri Lanka be able to field so many Parliamentary Select Committees for every event? After the recent Impeachment motion giving rise to the PSC, I hear that there is a request for a PSC for the prison riot. The PSC s are therefore an indication of the issues that seem to be cropping up and it appears that they are serious in nature, and require a proper investigation and evaluation, without a hatchet job being done on them.

In that event, the value of a PSC in a Government that has a two thirds majority does not make sense UNLESS the opposition has more appointees than the ruling party, so that they are more able to give a more balanced report or recommendation. Otherwise with an inbuilt majority, whatever the outcome, the result is that the Govt fixed the result to suit them.

Further, this mushrooming of PSC’s seem to take an awful long time in coming to a conclusion, by which time all the interested parties, would have moved onto more urgent matters to the delight of the Govt. This method of delay on important issues is not good for democracy, nor is good for governance.

What can we do about it under the current regime’s vice like grip on all axes of power, with no room for anything other than spontaneous explosion? It is up to the legal fraternity, both lawyers and judges to make a stand. Will they? They might, however the legal fraternity want to have their cake and eat it being too selfish to act in the Nation’s interest. They protect their rights over those of the public. It is to their personal goals that they first go.

The public therefore must understand the ground situation in making up its own mind on what is needed. This poses risks, and threats and there are many who are unwilling to risk their lives in the course of Justice. The biggest issue now is that there is NO obvious body to turn to for support, and no one wants to be first in the firing line not knowing who will join, whilst those at the back will reap all the benefits. We are passive, lazy, greedy or just cowed down with fright to challenge the status quo for the greater good. The coward in us has permitted the administration to massacre an institution, neighborhood, or an environment daily, for short term gain.

Don’t stand on ceremony whilst the ship sinks, dive in and salvage what you can. Once sunk in deep water, there is no telling if anything can be salvaged.

The Budget speech – talking to the public – a media stunt – unreal!

In all honesty the Budget speeches are used by clever politicians purely as a media stunt to sound generous. In a Santa Claus kind of way the President was serving up a few goodies to a few people who then are shown clapping in thanks!! All planned and scripted to the core.

The real story is hidden in the numbers and the 3 volume document that is given to the MPs with details of money allocated to all the departments of ministries and when one has time to go through all of that, one realizes how unfair and unreasonable the whole thing is.

Much of the numbers and percentages and the promises made are incorrect and deliberately mislead. The true picture of the lack of revenue in total even to pay off the debt interest is not mentioned anywhere. The expenditure is skyrocketing and there is no way of paying from Annual income, and we have to resort to borrowing both to pay our interest as well as for normal recurrent expenditure. That is unwise as any house wife will tell you, she will soon be in so much debt to money lenders it will not be funny.

It is therefore in the interests of the country to tighten the belts and pay down the debt and refinance at lower interest rates. Making claims which are interpreted incorrectly by the pundits who try to analyze what is being said is also fraught with danger. This is because everything is not what it seems, and one has to read the fine print and come to one’s own conclusions.

One glaring deliberately misleading statement was the use of the term, the Country spends 4.1% of its National Income on Education, changed in the Daily News to the Govt will spend 4.1% of GDP on Education. So in the budget the President’s estimate of Rs306B on education is a figment of his imagination, whilst the true expenditure by the Government on Education is one third of this amount, a lower percentage of the GDP this year than last. So fiddling logic and figures to fool the reader, and especially the public is a favorite pastime of the Budget deliverer.

It is left to us to decipher, take what is said with a pinch of salt and hope that our quality of life will not further erode due to the provisions in the budget. It is getting increasingly difficult for people to manage on their current earnings, as costs keep escalating including the burdens put on by the budget. There is no plan in the budget to increase that earning figure at all!

The big let down - legal eagles have shamed the process

Mr President – Why are you not mad at your legal advisers for making you look so amateurish in the world of public opinion?

The once envious legal profession seems to be in crisis, reaching a new low with the contents of the charge sheet. The President’s legal advisers on Constitutional Law, Mohan Peiris, GL Peiris and Asoka de Silva have let him down in the 14 point charge sheet presented to the Speaker calling for the Impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka. Surely it must have been prepared under their direction and it is a shoddy document with no teeth.

Further, the Constituents of the PSC are too heavily weighted with yes men, and none with independent thinkers, a requirement for it to be objective. This will not auger well for a balanced review and therefore will be unkindly referred to as the Kangaroo Court of the Regime.

If one looks at the psychology of those who advise the President if they believe they are invincible because they represent a regime that is totalitarian, then they would not be careful in their drafting of the motion. After all the motion is full of elementary errors of fact that needs to be corrected!!

In reality the Chief Justice should be credited for the confident and swift manner in which she has dealt with all the accusations deftly through her lawyers Neelakandan and Neelakandan, who answered all the questions to the newspapers that have laid out accusations of a misleading nature.

It will be interesting to see what next as the onus is on the Govt. to prove these are impeachable, and now the facts starkly look mighty irrelevant in the context of seriousness of the lapse of conduct. I cannot see anyone in Govt. caught off guard by such flimsy evidence, trying to justify impeachment  anymore in any but the lamest excuse for a reason!

It is time the President distances himself from these people to save face and perhaps sack them as his advisers for deliberately making him look stupid, especially as he is also a lawyer and should know better.

It seems to me that when power goes to people’s heads, they seem to lose objectivity and are unable to gauge their poor judgments. They have few people who can be honest with them, as sycophants only want to please and will not contradict or advise against a proposed action, however it may seem

Let it be a lesson to all citizens of Sri Lanka – Trumped up charges – it can be you next!

Especially to those who are closest to the Government, realize under what kind of noose you are currently in. It is better for us who are not under such a stranglehold, At least we have the luxury of a clear head to think. Your heads must be spinning wondering who or what is under your bed when you go to sleep, that is if you can ever sleep in this or should I say with this Administration.

The Reality is that if the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka can be impeached on trumped up charges, then let no citizen of Sri Lanka be fooled, any innocent person in this country can face a worse fate under the present Regime, and there will be no one to defend them! A threat such as that is worth fighting for, as it is you and that of your children and future generations of this country that we will have to fight for. It is a just fight.

Just look at the charges first. They are laughable. They are perfectly easily explained if there is a jonah out there who thinks they have any merit. 

Click here for the answers to the most serious charges - Chicken Shit!!

Then look at the fact that 117 MPs were forced to sign a document they knew not what under threat of a finger pointed. Then there was the list of MPs in Govt. who did not sign it, as they hoped to be in the PSC, mainly the Ministers. Now look at the Kangaroos in the Court, 7 Ministers appointed by the Govt. and two only from the UNP, that says a lot about transparency. At least the Opposition should have had a majority for transparency. Then the majority decision is a foregone conclusion, namely to impeach. No one in Govt. would dare express their own opinion if it differed to that of the order given. It is therefore very important to know how intelligently and clever the dissenting opinions of Lakshman Kiriella and John Amaratunge will be. Let us hope they get eminent lawyers to draft that, as that opinion is what the history books will remember, and the court of public opinion in the future will commend.

It is a cake walk for the Government and Chief Justice will be history, but she will go down for the record books as one who went down fighting a steamroller in the interests of safeguarding the judiciary from bully boy tactics.

Let us look beyond the impeachment. Who is going to be the next Chief Justice? Can any man of integrity hold his head up and take this post? Will all who are offered the position decline? What will come of the system of Justice, perilous as it already is in Sri Lanka? What is to become of the Judiciary in future? These are the questions to ponder on.

I appeal to the selfish legal fraternity, who hitherto have only their greedy pockets in mind, and therefore fail to stand up for justice, not to leave it to the poorer young lawyers to sign the protest against this injustice, but to all unanimously act together to save the day, by just withholding your services. 

A Government spokesman (Dallas) using inconsistencies of prior conduct to blast the opposition and hide their own failings

It is VITALLY important for an objective reader and thinker to understand the Government media strategy and disinformation led propaganda, to convince the general public of its snow white behavior, this time as it relates to the impeachment motion against the CJ.

It was CORRECT for the opposition to question the inconsistency of the CJ and her spouse in the capacity of Govt. yes men then, just as it is correct to question the use of an impeachment motion against her on spurious and unimpeachable grounds. There is NO inconsistency between those two stances as this Dallas thinks. It was WRONG of the Govt. to appoint the CJ under those conditions, and it was incumbent upon the Govt. to ask her husband to step down due to the conflict of interest. It was the Govt. in fact that allowed him, in fact pleaded with him to stay as they do not believe they are governed by the same standards lesser mortals are!!

Therefore it is mighty mischievous of the said ‘Dallas’ to make these allegations of double dealing or the opposition of trying to topple the Govt. It is within reasonable rights of the Opposition to defend the independence of the judiciary, which is enshrined in the Constitution, when it is threatened.

So instead of attacking the opposition, which is the standard modus operandi, which fools the unsuspecting public, they must justify the action in law, as sufficiently serious offences that warrant impeachment. After all the Govt. appointed her purely as a nodding donkey, and when the donkey decided it was time to stop nodding and hold her head firmly against the steamrolling of the public by an increasingly aggressive and autocratic govt. it was time to use the legal system to check the excess.

So be warned about the intentional media propaganda, designed to distract the intelligent reader from the real issues at hand, by picking different opposition stances in different time sequences, when all politicians and especially the Govt. is guilty of making the same, this time even on a daily basis, making two inconsistent statements on the same day on the same topic depending on who one speaks to. This spin doctoring of the media is regretful, as it is done deliberately to fool the reader, and the public of the measures taken to enforce autocratic rule disguised under the populist banner, using populist symbols and clever manipulation of the media.