The Exposure Of Disgusting Abuses: The Justice System Of Sri Lanka

By Sisira Weragoda –APRIL 27, 2018

Sisira Weragoda

The Exposure of Disgusting Abuses: The Justice System of Sri Lanka: Evaluation of Its Impact on the Public & Strategy for its Remediation

While commending efforts of Attorneys Nagananda Kodituwakku and Ms Sugandhika Fernando, to formulate a strategic follow-up plan to foster their aims, it is important to assess the true impact of the presentations made up to now in respect of the subject on the pubic and the national economy. Hence the need to evaluate the following:

(a) the quantitative impact of Sri Lanka’s Judiciary’s escalating disarray, eroding public confidence on the national economy based on revelations of the 2013 World Bank study: lack of reliable data and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools that are essential for management; escalating backlog of cases, almost 850,000, most pending for over a decade and increasing; the resulting litigant population, nearly 70,000, forced to commute daily to Courts in the midst of traffic congestion and parking hassle at courts, road accidents etc., most to be informed of the next calling date instead of their cases being dealt with. This is compounded by the litigants’ task of obtaining and filing copies of documents and the attorneys filing papers without consulting clients, thus disregarding critical errors and omissions. The resulting daily national loss of productivity of nearly 50,000 man days. Their outcome is the very lucrative enrichment of the legal fraternity at the expense of national productivity and public convenience;

(b) the Constitutional Assembly’s Judiciary Subcommittee Report: endeavoring to preserve the status quo by overlooking the most anguished public inconveniences aforesaid at (a) above; not revoking the perk of Three Court Vacations of 70 days despite it eroding the average delay per pending case, by nearly 20 percent;

(c) the importance of E-court services and Lay Judge system: a multidisciplinary platform of expertise field proven in many countries, including China, India and Bhutan- creating synergies to generate integrative knowledge focused to resolve pending problems of the Judiciary; -to accomplish the aims of the new Constitution Mr Kodituwakku intends to put up to remediate the notorious ills of the current system; and

(d) the impact of Jurisdictions due to the void of expertise guidance: illustrating its ILLS by an example of the very notorious jurisdiction in entirety by a team of the legal fraternity in SEATS of POWER upholding a flawed Telecom Tariff proposal prepared by THREE attorneys and published around July 2007. It is yet afflicting the public – an outcome that could have been averted had the bench comprised a mix of Professional and Lay Judges. (Daily Mirror 7 May 2008, SLT cheats through Mathematical Jugglery)

1. The Exposure of “Some Disgusting Abuses of Sri Lankan Justice System,” by attorney Sugandhika Fernando, the appeal by Attorney Nagananda Kodituwakku for unswerving public support, to rid the malaise of the Judiciary – the guardian of the nation’s peace, order, and good governance, – of its aberrant and rent seeking conduct, depriving of the most important deliverable, affordable and expeditious delivery of Justice, yearned by the public, but neglected for generations of the Parliament. It is a loud whisper decried then and now by the public, and –though very few in number-, also by bold luminaries of the fraternity: for example, a prominent luminary of the fraternity, PC Romesh De Silva- opining to the Sunday Observer “I have spoken many times about the issue on different platforms and even addressed the Bar Association. I don’t want to speak about it anymore“.

2. The 2013 World Bank study also reveals inefficacies of its management, gross lack of reliable management data, ICT tools even the most basic like email service, resulting in a backlog is said to be over 850,000 cases most of which are pending over a decade and steadily increasing. The estimate of consequent litigant population of nearly 70,000 is forced to commute daily to Courts, -most to be informed of the next calling date, yet forced to travel in the midst of aggravating traffic congestion, road accidents and parking hassle at courts etc. The resulting daily national loss of productivity is nearly 50,000 man days. The outcome of all these is the very lucrative enrichment of the legal fraternity at sacrifice of harsh erosion of national productivity and public convenience.

Read More