Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied To A 11 Year Old 

By Tush Wickramanayaka –JANUARY 21, 2019

Dr. Tush Wickramanayaka

The Chairman of Gateway Group, the Principal of Gateway College, the OIC of Seeduwa Police, the Human Rights Commission, the National Child Protection Authority, the Minister of Education, the Inspector General of Police, The Attorney General’s Department, The Prime Minister and the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka failed to protect and provide the Constitutional rights to a young citizen.

CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 11 – No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

CONSTITUITION ARTICLE 12 (1) – All persons are equal before the law, and are entitled to the equal protection of the law

The following all too familiar scenario, crystalizes all that is wrong with our society and how the long arm of power over-rides justice, decency and fair play.

The Incident 

On 12th January 2018, my 11 year old daughter who attends Gateway College, Negombo had forgotten to take her weekly English reading book to school. The English master, Jude Udayakumara had forced my daughter and 8 other students who had a simple lapse of memory to kneel down and pulled their ears despite merciful pleadings. This was the nth time such punishments were metered out for simple errors. The perpetrators remained in school continuing to punish the students whilst new recruits followed suit. I had made several complaints before, requesting for a transparent complaint procedure, compulsory child psychology training for teachers and an active child protection policy; these have been ignored. 

As usual, I immediately gave a written complaint to the Principal, Devika Alldis and as usual, nothing happened until 19th of January. I complained to Seeduwa Police. JMO diagnosed Acute Stress Disorder. Quite predictably, the OIC endorsed his personal agenda and persuaded me to ignore the incident because my child had no injury. I realized that chances of finding justice were remote. At the conclusion of the inquiry on 25th January 2018, The Principal assured me that a Child Protection Policy will be adopted and that none of the children will be harassed due to the complaint to Police. We settled the matter amicably. So we thought. 

The Aftermath 

The following day, Mrs Alldis summoned the other 8 students into her office individually and obtained written evidence, 2 weeks after the incident and after we had concluded the matter amicably. The children were intimidated not to share this information with my daughter. However, my daughter was not asked to write a letter. 

The poor students were petrified to associate my daughter. She was left alone all day. She did not have a single friend to share her lunch or talk during interval. All the students were walking away from her, whispering timidly “don’t speak to her, Madam will scold us.”

The Breakdown 

Read More