BBS and gavel blow - Editorial The Island

Editorial

Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Ven. Galabodaatte Gnanasara Thera has been arrested and remanded for creating a scene at the Homagama Magistrate’s Court on Monday. When he made an uproar following the Magistrate’s decision to remand a group of military personnel further over the disappearance of Ekneligoda he may have thought he would be able to avoid a judicial gavel blow as he had done previously. He was sadly mistaken. The matter is best left to the judiciary.

A group of Buddhist monks staged a protest yesterday against the court decision to remand Ven. Gnanasara Thera. They surrounded the Homagama Magistrate’s Court in a bid to prevent him from being taken to the remand prison. The police managed to bring the situation under control.

Anyone who disrupts court proceedings or abuses or intimidates a party to a case has to be severely dealt with. But, the question is why some people who openly cause affronts to the dignity of the judiciary and even threaten judges are allowed to go scot free.

Everybody is said to be equal before the law. There is no bigger lie than this! Our experience has been that some are more equal than others. It looks as if many offenders, especially those with political connections, were too powerful to be caught and prosecuted. There have been instances where senior lawyers themselves wreaked havoc on court houses with impunity, as we have pointed out in these columns previously.

It may be recalled that when the judgment in the so-called White Flag case was given in 2011 a group of lawyers who took exception to that decision ran riot, smashing up court furniture; they went so far as to abuse a female judge in raw filth. The police had to rush in to remove the judges to safety with mobs inside the court room issuing threats. We are not short of champions of judicial independence, but, regrettably, all of them turned a blind eye to the despicable incident because of their political biases. The perpetrators got away with that serious offence. A very bad precedent was set on that day. People have been sentenced to months in jail for lesser offences. It was only recently that a person who happened to yawn in a court house was thrown behind bars.

A few weeks ago lawyers and the police had a blazing row in a Magistrate’s court, bringing judicial proceedings to an abrupt end. But, no one was brought to justice. Why? Is it that the police and lawyers are above the law?

Drastic action is called for to rid courts of ugly scenes of rowdyism and threats to judges or others.

Political leaders have made a mockery of the rule of the law and the justice dispensation system. Rapists, murderers, drug dealers and terrorists who are arrested, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced amidst trying conditions at a tremendous cost to the public purse have been among those given presidential pardons. Investigators who spend long days and sleepless nights and risk life and limb to hunt down dangerous elements and press charges against them naturally get disheartened when such ill-conceived pardons are given for political reasons.

Politicians in power do not have to worry about the law at all; if it becomes too embarrassing for governments to hush up investigations the offenders travel with the police in air-conditioned comfort to courts where they avail themselves of what may be dubbed the VIP express bail service. The law gets enforced strictly only against those who are out of power and pose a political threat to the powers that be as we have seen all these years.

The judiciary is also not free from blame for this sorry state of affairs. A court was once opened on a Poya Day so that a highly connected suspect could get bail. Courts have also been kept open close to midnight to remand suspects brought there by special police units doing political work on the pretext of helping fight corruption. These despicable practices which cause the people to lose their faith in the judicial system must end forthwith.

Constitutional provisions alone cannot safeguard judicial independence. The onus is on all judicial officers to take stern action, without fear or favour, to ensure that nobody interferes or trifles with the judiciary if the erosion of public faith in that institution is to be arrested.