Diana G saga exposes collusion between politicians and bureaucrats to shield wrongdoers

Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) National List MP Diana Gamage was disqualified from holding the post of Member of Parliament by the Supreme Court this week. The Court found that Gamage was a British citizen and had fraudulently obtained a Sri Lankan passport. Since her unseating, Gamage has hit back saying she does not accept the court ruling and accused certain persons in the SJB of conspiring against her and vowed to expose them soon.

The SJB in the meantime moved quickly to fill her vacant seat and named its Colombo District member Mujibur Rahuman to replace the ousted MP. He took oath yesterday before Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena.

The saga around Diana Gamage is as sordid and rotten as it gets in Sri Lankan politics. The telephone symbol that is now the symbol of the SJB was registered under the Our National Party of which Diana Gamage is named as the Secretary. This symbol was loaned to the SJB to contest the 2019 Presidential and 2020 Parliamentary elections and in lieu Diana Gamage’s name was added to the SJB National List. At the conclusion of the election, she was picked as one of the seven from the SJB to enter Parliament from the NL.

Things between Gamage and the SJB turned sour quickly and in October 2020, she crossed over to the ruling side by voting for the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. In September 2022, she was appointed as a State Minister by President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Since the SC ruling, fingers are being pointed in all directions with the SJB working overtime to cover up its massive blunder of appointing a person to Parliament without checking her credentials while the Government side is doing its best to dodge questions on its failure to verify serious allegations that were levelled at Gamage regarding her Sri Lankan citizenship.

Where political parties are concerned, one thing that is blatantly clear from this episode is that when it comes to serving their own interests, political expediency will overshadow everything else. The recent case involving the handing over of the visa processing for foreigners to a private company is another case in point where all parties found it convenient to play possum rather than take on the powerful Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles.

While politicians will always cover up for each other, the Diana Gamage judgement written by Justice Janak De Silva exposes the collusion between politicians and public officials to shield those in high places.

In his judgement, Justice De Silva noted as a “fascinating fact” that the 3rd Respondent in the case, the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration Jayasen Ilukpitiya, had in his affidavit to court stated that he is not aware whether the holder of the British passport was Diana Gamage, while a Deputy Controller of the Department who checked the computer records had confirmed it did belong to her. This clearly shows that Ilukpitiya had attempted to mislead the court by his affidavit. On whose orders did he attempt to mislead the court, is a question to which the public would want an answer to.

The Court also noted that while the case challenging the citizenship of Gamage was filed in the Magistrate’s Court in early 2023, the CID investigations into the case had “strangely and startlingly remained in limbo with no investigation for over 18 months.”

“It was submitted that such is a privilege only very few people in the Republic are afforded, especially when suspected to have been in violation of the Immigrants and Emigrants Act,” the Court said, adding that almost three years since the facts were reported, Gamage continued to function as a Member of Parliament with the law not taking its course as it would against any normal citizen.

While there are constitutional guarantees of equality before the law for all citizens, the Diana Gamage judgement exposes how politicians and officials work together to subvert the legal process and try to hoodwink the judiciary as well as the public.