SRI LANKA - The new AG and IGP – Tasked to revitalise the dying system

by Basil Fernando-May 5, 2016

Now, there is a new Attorney General and a new Inspector General of Police. Whatever be the disputes about the manner in which their appointments were made, they are now the operators of two of the most vital systems of the state apparatus in Sri Lanka, the Attorney General’s Department and the police service.

That both of these vital institutions have been in a state of serious crisis and even decline, are a fact that is known to everyone; and is also acknowledged by the political and all other authorities. For at least the last 16 years, there had been a constant discussion on the state of collapse of the state institutions, including the Attorney General’s Department and also the policing service. An important landmark in this discussion was the debate in the Sri Lankan Parliament on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.

Reading the literature of the debates surrounding the move to introduce the 17th Amendment we find a very in depth discussion on the extent to which all the basic institutions of the state have been very seriously undermined due to the constitutional adjustments by way of the 1972 and the 1978 Constitution. That debate was made around particularly; the vicious impact the executive presidential system has the entire state apparatus of Sri Lanka. The key word that was used during this time was ‘politicisation’. The word politicisation was connoted as much of a danger signal as HIV Aids or terminal cancer. The problem was so serious.

The 17th Amendment was passed almost unanimously because of the consensus that existed even then, that unless something radical was done, the country was heading towards a serious peril.The 17th Amendment proposed a change of the manner of appointments to the most important functions of the state, having impact on various sectors of life in the society, so that the people who are really suitable for being the leaders of these various institutions will be appointed by following a methodology of merit rather than political preference.

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