During the last few weeks, the media has paid a great deal of attention to fundamental rights cases filed in our Supreme Court. The electronic media, typically expressed half-truths or incorrect information on what these cases were about. Sadly, but perhaps not unexpectedly, opposition parties who should have been concerned with the matter, failed to contradict the […]
The Rule of Law and Democratic Governance. At the Annual National law Conference 2020 organised by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapakse in the course of his address said “the time has come for all stakeholders including the judiciary, government, legal fraternity, and all other citizens concerned, to work together and […]
In the first few days, as America burned, the world looked on amazed and bewildered, wondering what this would mean for the immediate and long-term future. As the protests settled down and drew larger crowds with an overwhelming number of young people, one began to think of other movements in Hong Kong, in India, with […]
Sri Lanka Brief Fact Sheet: Militarisation and Securitization of Government and Governance in Sri Lanka. June 2020. Here is the list of military appointments made by president Gotabhaya Rajapaksa outside the military establishments. 1. Major General (Rtd) Kamal Gunaratne: -Secretary of Defence (November 2020)i -TRCSL- Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka - The Regulator of […]
The distinguishing feature of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and indeed, at the same time the cause for concern with regard to him, is that he was never elected to any office until he won the presidency. He was a military man first and then the all-powerful bureaucrat as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence – a soldier […]
Sri Lanka Brief Up Date/ 03 June 2020 Rights of the migrant workers in the Middle East during the pandemic 1. The estimated number of overseas Sri Lankan workers is 1.5 million and 1.2 million of these are in the Middle East. The majority of the 1.2 million Sri Lankan workers in the Middle East […]
Executive Summary. This report [by INFORM, Colombo,Sri Lanka] records 95 incidents that had been reported during the 90 days period. The average number of incidents per day reported prior to the covid-19 curfew is slightly higher than the number of incidents reported during the curfew. There were a high number of incidents related to legal, […]
A Wikileaks cable shows that the discussion between Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Government of Sri Lanka begun as early as 2006. Although the focus of the MMC grant has changed over the years, it is clear that discussions were initiated by Mahinda Rajapaksa government in 2006. The cable says that "Governor Cabraal affirmed that […]
Image: Gota checking rice price. All good things must come to an end. Gota’s victory over LTTE and limited victory over COVID-19 are fast turning into just sweet but distant memories. A new enemy and one about whom Gota and his power cartel has very limited knowledge, and with no effective weapons to fight with, […]
Image: On the memorial wall, International day for the disappeared 2019, Colombo, Sri Lanka. In a televised statement issued on 28 June 2020 Prime Minister Rajapaksa called for a strong mandate to defeat domestic and foreign conspirators and to overturn the Office for Missing Persons and national laws related to international Convention Against Enforced Disappearances. […]
The increasing irrelevance of a constitution for Sri Lanka. If President Gotabaya Rajapaksa can be so bold as to set up institutions running parallel to constitutional bodies situated in his Presidential Secretariat, the consequential question arises as to what need is there of a Constitution for Sri Lanka? This query becomes pertinent in regard to […]
The voyage from Serendib to Sri Lanka through Ceylon continues to be an uninterrupted tale of opportunities lost, scorned and spurned. The brutal end to the quarter-century war with the Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009 brought an unprecedented opportunity for the government to heal the Sinhala–Tamil ethnic divide. But now a new front is opening, one against Sri Lanka’s […]
