Sri Lankan judiciary: bowed and afraid

The spotlight turned once again on the Sri Lankan judiciary last week with the resignation of Judge T. Saravanaraja with media reports saying the judge fled the country. In the letter, addressed to the Secretary of Sri Lanka’s Judicial Services Commission, Judge Saravanaraja cited the “threat of my life and … [a] lot of stress” as the reasons for his decision to step down. Saravanaraja was a judge in the Mullaitivu district of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.

Judge Saravanaraja had recently presided over two significant cases. The first case involved a dispute over a religious site, Kurunthurmalai, an ancient Tamil temple site located within the Thannimurippu area of the Mullaitivu district, after Buddhist priests had forcefully occupied a site traditionally worshiped by Hindus. The hardline Sinhala nationalists along with extremist monks have used the site to regain lost relevance in recent times. They have been particularly angered by judge Saravanaraja’s order to remove recently erected structures, including an unlawfully constructed Buddhist shrine situated atop Kurunthurmalai. The judge recently ordered excavations at a mass grave site in Kokkuthoduvai, while he had earlier presided over numerous cases of enforced disappearances in the Mullaitivu district, the stage for the final battle between the Government and the LTTE.

While there have been serious doubts about the independence and potency of the Sri Lankan judiciary, especially concerning grave human rights violations, the latest episode of the resignation of a judge who had been presiding over several sensitive issues once again highlights the dire state of the courts. It is alleged that the Attorney General ‘invited’ judge Saravanaraja for a meeting immediately prior to his resignation and compelled him to reverse his order in the Kurunthurmalai case. It is also alleged that former Minister of Public Security Sarath Weerasekera, an unapologetic race baiting nationalist, had also threatened the judge. 

The resignation of the judge comes in the wake of years of systemic weakening of the judicial system. It has in fact been the lower court judges and magistrates that have held the line on judicial independence while their senior partners in the superior courts have kowtowed to the executive for the last 20 years. Sri Lanka has witnessed chief justices becoming personal lawyers to politicians after retirement, obtaining diplomatic postings for themselves and their offspring and even pleading for forgiveness from the public for judgements they later admit were politically motivated. 

All along the superior courts have weaponised the contempt of court provisions in the constitution, sans any legislation on the same, to instil fear of criticising the judiciary. Even parliamentarians, elected representatives of the people, have been thrown in jail for expressing opinions on the conduct of Courts.

Such judicial thuggery comes while there has been hardly any justice being delivered to tens of thousands of victims of State crimes including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Due to this failure of the judiciary, there are now calls for international action for justice, not only for the crimes committed in the context of the war, but for even the Easter Sunday attacks.

The resignation of judge Saravanaraja should not therefore be a surprise or considered as an anomaly in the system. It is a symptom of the deep rot that has set within the whole judicial system which has lost not only its independence but also its credibility.