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Regarded as one of Sri Lanka’s finest public intellectuals, Martin Wickramasinghe (1890 – 1976) unleashed the possibilities of radical thought in 20th century South Asia. His 50th death anniversary fell this week, on July 23.
A tiny island some 30 or so miles from India, Sri Lanka has a recorded history of more than 2,500 years. Its recent history has been marred by ethnic conflict, civil war, and political and economic crisis. This has tended to dominate international reporting at the expense of other aspects. In reality, the country is popularly marketed as the pearl of the Indian Ocean. The more cynical and pessimistic, mindful of its troubled past, call it a teardrop. Both groups are right: the half-full bottle, after all, is also half-empty.
Yet at one point, the country was well known for its contributions to regional, even global, intellectual exchanges. Historical records tell us of monasteries that served as seats of learning and monarchs who patronized monasteries. Pilgrims and travelers from far-flung regions, including Europe, West Asia, and China, wrote about their visits to the country and their encounters with these establishments. Such exchanges continued for much of the island’s history, well into the colonial period. Conquered by Portuguese forces in the 16th century, and later by Dutch and British forces, by the 19th century Sri Lanka figured in at the center of an empire on which, it was said, the sun never set.
During this time, the popularization of print media, or print capitalism as the anthropologist Benedict Anderson puts it, led to the spread of ideas that reinforced notions of nationhood and nation-state. In 19th century British Ceylon, the press and print media were dominated by European and missionary interests. Later these platforms found their way to other parts of the nation. This paved the way for debates and discussions across racial, religious, and language lines. That, in turn, laid the foundation for a generation of public thinkers, writers, and scholars of repute in Sri Lanka.
Among these public figures was Martin Wickramasinghe. Little known outside the region, but hugely popular in his country, Wickramasinghe has been described as the quintessential organic intellectual and the preeminent novelist and short-story writer of 20th century Sri Lanka. He was also, possibly, the most prolific public thinker of his time in the country. This week marked his 50th death anniversary. At a time of political and economic tension in Sri Lanka, his life offers an alternative framing of art, culture, history, literature, and nationalism which is more nuanced and more pluralist.
Martin Wickramasinghe was born on May 29, 1890, in Koggala, a village some 150 km from the capital Colombo in the southern district of Galle. The district stood at the center of Sri Lanka’s maritime provinces. These provinces had come under the control of successive European powers from the 16th century. Absorbing different cultural influences, in his memoirs Wickramasinghe recalls Koggala as a quintessential colonial village that was prone to reinvention and transformation. His ideas of art, culture, and history were shaped at the crossroads of the region. Reflecting on it later, he depicted a world where social structures were moving and changing. In contrast to nationalist ideologues who idealized the village as a static and unchanging entity, he saw it as a society in motion.
The middle class … started abandoning old customs and names to stand apart from ordinary village folk. Discarding male names such as Sirimal, Nimal, Gauthamadasa, and Buddhadasa, and female names such as Dayawathie, Premawathie, and Gunawathie, they gave their sons names like Francis, Henry, Samson, and Oibert, while the girls got names such as Lucy, Maggie, Laura, and Nelly.
Martin Wickramasinghe, Upan Da Sita (1961)
Martin Wickramasinghe learnt to read and write under a local village teacher. He was then sent to the village Buddhist temple, where a monk who happened to be his cousin taught him not just his first language Sinhala, but also Pali, Sanskrit, the Devanagari script, and even rudiments of English. The latter became useful when his parents decided to send him to an English school that run by the Anglican church, closer to the city of Galle. These were years of tremendous transformation in the south. While certain people prospered in economic terms, others declined. Wickramasinghe saw these changing tides of fortune. In time they would affect his own family.
Although his family had ambitions for him – he was the only son among eight daughters, a point that marked him out for special treatment by parents and elders – Wickramasinghe was forced to abandon his education when his father, a police-official, passed away. Wickramasinghe was around eight at the time. By then, his family had invested in plumbago or graphite. At the time the industry was going through a boom.
Tragically for his family, the investment failed. Drowning in debt, his mother had no choice but to remove Wickramasinghe from school and find him employment. In the early 20th century, Colombo stood as the center of the island’s economic and political power. In 1906, Wickramasinghe was sent there to work as a shop assistant.
For a young man from Galle, Colombo must have appeared strange and somewhat alien. A deeply Westernised, urban, and sophisticated space, ordered and controlled, it was the residence of many of the country’s wealthiest residents. Entrenched in European customs and attitudes, these residents, known as Ceylonese, were almost distanced from the rest of the country. Yet though it was embedded in colonialism, it was in Colombo that decisions were made and reforms were directed to change the country’s administrative and political structures. It was here that the island’s leading social and political movements unfolded. Familiarising himself in his surroundings, Wickramasinghe adapted to these developments, observing them and often taking part in them.
In Koggala Wickramasinghe had shirked formal education. His memoirs, published in 1961, depict a child who disliked classroom learning and frequently played truant. Yet while he resisted formal schooling in Galle, he immersed himself in books in Colombo. He patronized leading bookshops in Pettah, the commercial center of the city, where he worked and lived. Eventually he discovered the writings of freethinkers, rationalists, philosophers, scientists, and anthropologists. Among the authors he read at this point were the American radical thinker Robert Ingersoll and the English biologist Thomas Huxley. Through them, he discovered Charles Darwin and other science writers. Their ideas influenced him. Over time they shaped his attitudes towards society, culture, and religion.
My mind was possessed by a desire to learn about the beginning and end of the world. None of the bookshops in Colombo carried these books. Cave and Co. had some books which carried these titles. I bought a copy of a collection of essays called Human Origins for fifty cents and read it. I realised that my English was not good enough to comprehend everything in these essays. I hence bought a pocket English dictionary and read Robinson Crusoe and later Gulliver’s Travels.
To understand his progress at this stage, Wickramasinghe’s intellectual evolution must be contextualized. In the late 20th century, Sri Lanka witnessed the peak of a Buddhist Revival. Tracing its origins to the late 19th century, this Revival was led by monks and activists who were protective of their faith. They frequently published polemics against other groups, especially Christian missionaries. Determined to restore Buddhism to what they regarded as its foremost or rightful place, they envisioned a world where their identity stood over all others. Wickramasinghe saw these developments from afar. Refusing to conform, he evolved a somewhat different interpretation of culture and identity.
Wickramasinghe was just 24 years old when he published his first novel, Leela, in 1914. Despite its fairly predictable plot, he depicted a clash between tradition and modernity. Rather than celebrate traditional values, as many in the Revival did, he explicitly celebrated modernity and intellectual progress. At a time of great social change in Sri Lanka, this message proved off-putting for monks and activists. Not surprisingly, in the press, the novel was branded as an attack on Sinhala Buddhist values.
We cannot hope to advance if we stay attached to old traditions and practices. From the tiniest animal to the human species, everything in this world is connected to the outer world, the environment. This is an indisputable truth. Everything around us changes from moment to moment. If we adapt to these changes, we will progress. If we refuse to adapt to them, we will decline.
Martin Wickramasinghe, Leela (1914)
Encouraged by the response to the novel, two years later, in 1916, he began writing to the press. His first article, “Vruksalatha saha Sathwayo” (“Plants and Animals”), published in a leading daily Sri Lankan newspaper, the Dinamina, posed a daring question: if higher forms of life such as animals and humans were subject to the laws of reincarnation as dictated by Buddhism, shouldn’t lower forms of life, such as plants, be subject to them as well? Going beyond even his critique of tradition in Leela, this first article opened him to a barrage of angry comments by readers. Once again, he had resolved to go against the grain and to use his knowledge to reinterpret his faith and culture.
Taken together, his first novel and his first article laid the foundation for his career as a writer and a thinker. In 13 novels, several short stories, and countless essays, many of them published in newspapers, he explored aspects of his society through an anthropological lens. In doing so, he made two somewhat unique contributions.
First, in Sinhala, Wickramasinghe introduced literary, cultural, and scientific terms and ideas to a vernacular audience. At a time when Sinhala nationalists uncritically valorized the past and held it as an object of veneration, Wickramasinghe popularized the most contemporary, radical ideas from the West among his countrymen. In doing so he made them aware of other ways of framing identity, beyond the restrictive, often insular forms which nationalism took, and has taken since then, in Sri Lanka.
Second, writing in English, he applied the frameworks of the leading anthropologists of his time – the two most prominent being Bronislaw Malinowski and Ruth Benedict – to his community. As the anthropologist Sarath Amunugama noted in an interview with me, in delving into his society so deeply, he made Sinhala Buddhist culture “as valid an object of study as any other rural traditional society in the world of his time.”
This contribution was unprecedented for two reasons. First, as mentioned before, he refused to subscribe to nationalist and nativist ideologues. Although he identified himself as Sinhala and Buddhist, he emphasized that culture was not an abstract entity, that it was changing and rupturing all the time. His upbringing in Koggala made him conscious of the fluidity of culture and how societies were borrowing from each other. Against such a backdrop, he refused to romanticize and “utopianize” his culture. Instead, he made it a subject of critical scrutiny. Far from belittling it, he felt this to be the only way forward.
We are living in Ceylon like an integrated community… An integrated independent community implies a language, culture, and tradition of their own which are, of course, continuously changing. Language and tradition are aspects of culture. The most important thing for an independent community is its changing culture, which unites them in spite of the diversities of class and social habits.
Martin Wickramasinghe, Sinhala Language and Culture (1975)
This was evident even in his fiction. In novels like Gamperaliya (1944), which has often been compared to Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s great saga of the Italian nobility, The Leopard, he charts the economic changes which transformed the country in the late 19th century. Like Lampedusa’s novel, Gamperaliya portrays a clash between an old aristocracy moored in traditional values and a new elite moored in the capitalist ethic. Considered as the definitive realist Sinhala novel of the 20th century, it was hailed as a masterpiece almost right after it was first published by Ediriweera Sarachchandra.
Second, as a public figure, Wickramasinghe communicated his ideas through the popular press. At the time newspapers enjoyed a considerable circulation and were featuring essays on literature, art, and religion. Wickramasinghe made use of these platforms to convey his ideas on these subjects to a wide audience. In doing so, he enabled the transmission of new and modern ideas to a very receptive readership.
With the public as his audience, Wickramasinghe also strived to deconstruct theories of art, culture, and literature which until then had been inaccessible for lay readers. In books like Aspects of Sinhalese Culture (1952), Buddhism and Culture (1964), Buddhism and Art (1973), and Sinhala Language and Culture (1975), he introduced new theories and tried to democratize knowledge. Lacking formal schooling, self-taught and self-formed, he valued the power of ideas and frequently questioned received assumptions.
When doing so, he did not shirk from courting controversy. His first novel, Leela, provoked colorful reactions, especially from monks. Almost 60 years later, in 1973, he repeated this feat with his last novel, Bava Taranaya. Depicting the life of the Buddha – a highly sensitive topic – with unusual frankness, Bava Taranaya scandalized audiences. Monks and activists took issue with how he had portrayed its subject. Not unlike Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, extremists branded it as a heresy, with one person requesting authorities to jail its author. Though the then government decided against such an action, the controversy his novel provoked showed that Wickramasinghe chose to be a contrarian even at the very end of his life. He would pass away three years later.
In that sense, perhaps his single biggest contribution, as a Sri Lankan and South Asian literary figure, was that he used a comparative approach to whatever he wrote about. As the literary scholar Chamila Somirathna has written in her MA dissertation on Wickramasinghe, he adopted a multifaceted view of concepts and theories. Over time this transformed him into a cosmopolitan critic who valued diverse perspectives.
While he did not reject the existence of the university system, he envisioned the emergence of several universities which would he believed would allow a better dialogue, even controversy, between different ideas, resulting in new forms of knowledge… He also argued that language and literature do not necessarily belong to academic institutions, but to everybody. The fact that [he] used newspapers as one major medium for discussing literature and criticism reflects his view that access to the study of literature and criticism is the right of the general public.
Chamila Somirathna, Re-envisioning a Discipline: Martin Wickramasinghe’s Contribution to Comparative Literature (2016)
Wickramasinghe’s study of evolution and anthropology opened him to the links between different aspects of culture. Yet, as the renowned Sinhala language scholar and linguist Sandagomi Coperahewa observed in an interview with me, Wickramasinghe’s fiction, his novels and short stories, tend to be read to the exclusion of his radical writings. Partly because of this, he is stereotyped as a Sinhala Buddhist thinker, even though his essays and articles reflect a more complex, nuanced perspective.
Because of this omission, his absence from the pantheon of modern – and modernist – thinkers in South Asia should not come as a surprise. Wickramasinghe lived, worked, and thrived at a time when South Asia was undergoing a profound transformation in its culture, its society, and its politics. Coming of age at the twilight of colonial rule in Sri Lanka, he formulated theories of art, literature, culture, and religion that could not have been more different to the insular visions of nativist-nationalists. It is for that reason that Martin Wickramasinghe deserves to be read, deconstructed, and demystified, as more than a Sinhala, Buddhist, and Sri Lankan thinker. Like that other pluralist thinker of 20th century South Asia, Rabindranath Tagore, Wickramasinghe imbibed a pluralistic view of society which differed from his colleagues.
Unlike those who saw it as something to be venerated, Wickramasinghe perceived the past as something we could never return to, something we should not idealize. The title of one of his well-known books, Kalunika Seveema (In Search of Kalunika, 1950), reveals his attitude to the past: in Sinhalese folklore, “kalunika” was an herb said to impart long life on those who found it. But as with most folklore, it simply did not exist. For Wickramasinghe, the past was a little like kalunika. Full of promise and potential, it could never be found or retrieved. Going in search of it, he pointed out, was akin to a fool’s errand.
Uditha Devapriya is an independent researcher who works at the intersection of art, culture, history, politics, and international relations. From 2021 to 2024 he was involved in the production of an illustrated biography of George Keyt by the historian and art scholar Dr SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda. He is presently engaged in a biographical study of Martin Wickramasinghe that will focus on his role as a public intellectual and critic. A consultant to the Martin Wickramasinghe Trust, he was previously Chief International Relations Analyst at the foreign policy think-tank Factum. He is the author of five books, including an official history of S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, and has delivered lectures on Wickramasinghe physically and online in Sri Lanka, India, and the UK.
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The seizure of 471 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, or ‘ICE’, concealed inside a container, at the Port of Colombo, is being rightly treated as a significant Customs success. Yet the seizure should also provoke a more uncomfortable question. How long can Sri Lanka continue trying to secure a 21st century trading hub with an inspection system designed around methods that belong to another era?
The answer cannot simply be more inspections, more paperwork or more officials opening more containers. Colombo handles enormous volumes of containerised cargo, much of it legitimate. A single container can contain tonnes of goods, packed into hundreds of individual packages. When contraband represents only a fraction of the cargo, physical examination alone becomes an exercise in probability.
The challenge is not merely finding the needle in the haystack. It is determining which haystack is worth searching in the first place.
The Asian Development Bank identified this problem years ago. Its technical assistance assessment found that Sri Lanka’s trade logistics procedures suffered from a “lack of a modern risk management system and other modern customs tools”, combined with “insufficient use of automated systems”, contributing to cargo queues at the Port. It also found that the movement of cargo to and from Customs examination yards, which had poor access, contributed to congestion. These were not casual observations. They formed part of an ADB-supported programme intended to modernise Sri Lanka’s trade logistics system.
The findings were even more uncomfortable. The ADB identified “inadequate use of modern customs tools”, excessive documentation, insufficient automation, inadequate cooperation among border agencies, the absence of a port facilitation system, weaknesses in inland cargo clearance and inadequate capacity. It also reported that Customs risk rules were written in such a way that “80% of the consignments are targeted”. A system in which such a large proportion of cargo becomes subject to targeting inevitably risks undermining the very principle of risk-based Customs control. The more everything becomes suspicious, the less meaningful suspicion becomes.
The ADB-supported feasibility study for a new Customs inspection facility was initiated in 2020, with its final report submitted in December 2021. The study considered alternative locations before Kerawalapitiya emerged as the preferred site. The objective was not simply to construct another yard. The ADB Terms of Reference required the consultants to determine the physical and operational feasibility of the facility, assess potential demand, identify infrastructure requirements and prepare a comprehensive cost estimate. They were also required to identify the government stakeholders involved and “the time allocated for review and approvals”. The irony is difficult to miss. Years after the feasibility exercise, Sri Lanka is still discussing how to bring the facility into operation.
The proposed Kerawalapitiya Customs Verification Centre therefore represents something larger than another infrastructure project. It is a test of whether the Sri Lankan state can convert policy into implementation. According to reporting in 2024, the proposed facility was designed to accommodate around 3,000 containers. Yet the project remained caught in administrative and financial uncertainty years after the feasibility work had been completed. Government land was subsequently allocated and the government moved towards a hybrid public-private partnership model. The question now is why such a basic modernisation programme should have taken so long to progress.
This is where the private sector cannot simply be treated as an ideological inconvenience. Sri Lanka’s public sector has demonstrated repeatedly that it can commission studies, establish committees, formulate strategies and announce projects. The more difficult test is delivering complex infrastructure on time, within budget, and according to measurable standards. A modern Customs inspection centre requires sophisticated scanning equipment, electronic tracking, data systems, cybersecurity, maintenance and continuous technological upgrading. These are precisely the areas in which properly regulated private-sector participation can bring capital, expertise and operational discipline.
That does not mean privatising Customs. The authority to inspect, seize, investigate, impose duties and enforce the law must remain with the state. But there is no compelling reason why every piece of infrastructure, technology platform and operational service surrounding those sovereign functions, must be designed and delivered exclusively through traditional government mechanisms.
The government has already moved in this direction. Cabinet approved the establishment of the Kerawalapitiya Customs Verification Centre and subsequently approved a process to select a private partner under a hybrid public-private partnership model. The policy question is therefore no longer whether private-sector involvement is possible. It is whether the Government can structure that involvement transparently enough to prevent a new system from simply reproducing old weaknesses under a different ownership arrangement.
That requires radical transparency. The public should know who is selected, how the contract is awarded, what the operator is required to deliver, what technology will be installed, what performance standards will apply and what penalties will follow failure. The Government should publish a timetable with identifiable responsibility for every stage. Otherwise, “public-private partnership” risks becoming another phrase that conceals rather than solves institutional delay.
The technology must also be substantially more ambitious than a larger physical yard. The ADB found that existing cargo seals were “not tamper-proof” and that existing devices did not provide live tracking or alerts concerning tampering or diversion. A modern Kerawalapitiya
centre should integrate non-intrusive inspection, electronic cargo tracking, intelligence databases, automated risk profiling and secure digital records. Artificial intelligence may assist image analysis, but it should supplement trained Customs judgement rather than become an excuse to outsource accountability to algorithms.
The principle should be simple. Sri Lanka does not need 100 percent physical examination of containers. It needs 100 percent visibility of risk. That means legitimate traders should not be punished because the system cannot distinguish them from high-risk consignments. Low-risk cargo should move quickly. Suspicious containers should receive scanning and targeted examination. High-risk shipments should receive intensive inspection. The result should be stronger border security alongside faster trade, not security achieved by paralysing commerce.
The recent drug seizure demonstrates that Customs officers can and do intercept major threats. But individual successes cannot substitute for institutional reform. If Sri Lanka waits for every new seizure to trigger another debate about Customs weaknesses, it will remain trapped in a reactive cycle.
The ADB study has already identified the weaknesses. The government has already identified the land. The feasibility work has already been undertaken. The partnership model has already entered the policy process. What is missing is decisive implementation. Kerawalapitiya should, therefore, become a test of governmental accountability. Sri Lanka does not need another promise to modernise Customs. It needs a functioning facility, modern technology, transparent procurement and a deadline that cannot quietly disappear into another government file.
The real scandal would not be that criminals occasionally attempt to exploit weaknesses in a complex trading system. The real failure would be knowing where those weaknesses are, knowing how to fix them and still taking years to do so.
(Nirmala de Fonseka is a former Director of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, and currently works as a consultant specialising in logistics management)
In Parliament last week, Deputy Minister Anil Jayantha responded to MP Ravi Karunanayake’s question regarding the future of Sri Lankan exports to the EU market by stating that, “It is expected to examine and report on possible options for securing long-term and sustainable market access to the EU through a deeper economic arrangement, including a possible comprehensive trade agreement, in the event of Sri Lanka graduating from the GSP+ scheme if it is classified as an upper-middle-income country by the World Bank for three consecutive years. Sri Lanka has recorded upper-middle-income status in 2026.” The deputy minister had also referred to the conclusion of negotiations on the EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and its impact on Sri Lankan exports.
This is alarming, given that the plans remain in a very early stage of development. The negotiations on the India–European Union Free Trade Agreement were concluded in January 2026. Sri Lanka should have engaged with the European Commission soon afterwards to discuss the FTA’s potential impact on Sri Lanka, and this should have been a key item on the agenda of the joint commission meeting between the European Commission and Sri Lanka in February. (see my article on this at https://island.lk/an-innocent-bystander-or-a-passive-onlooker/). Unfortunately, the joint press release following the meeting makes no reference to this critical issue.
Even at this late stage, considering a comprehensive trade agreement is undoubtedly a positive development. Particularly because after the expiration of GSP benefits, an FTA is Sri Lanka’s sole pathway to retaining preferential access to the EU market. But FTAs typically take years to negotiate. The EU-India FTA, for example, followed a long process that began in 2007. Negotiations officially concluded on
January 27, 2026. The agreement is expected to be signed in December 2026, with full implementation targeted for early 2027.
Now, let’s explore what other nations can teach us about this.
Indonesia is the latest country to “graduate” from the EU’s GSP arrangement. Indonesia achieved upper-middle-income status in 2020, briefly fell back due to economic shifts, and regained it in 2024, maintaining that status ever since. As a direct result of this sustained economic growth, Indonesia will graduate from the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP) on January 1, 2027. To safeguard its long-term competitiveness in the EU market ahead of this transition, the country has been negotiating the Indonesia–European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement since official talks began in July 2016. Following 19 rounds of talks, negotiators wrapped up the agreement in September 2025, though it remains unsigned; Indonesia is now rushing to complete both signing and ratification before the GSP deadline.
The Philippines and Sri Lanka were both reclassified as upper-middle-income countries on July 1, 2026. As a GSP Plus beneficiary, the Philippines anticipated that the economic development could
negatively affect its preferential market access to the EU and, to counter this, the country resumed stalled EU-FTA negotiations in 2024, which had paused during President Duterte’s regime over human rights issues. Having already secured substantial agreement on core terms, the formal trade pact is expected to be finalised in 2027, ahead of the country’s graduation from the GSP.
After briefly holding upper-middle-income status from July 2019 to July 2020, Sri Lanka fell back to the middle-income group due to the pandemic and economic crisis. Sri Lanka was reclassified as an upper-middle-income country by the World Bank in July 2026. This milestone starts the countdown to graduate from the EU’s GSP. If Sri Lanka keeps upper-middle-income status, it will exit the GSP programme by July 2029 — or by July 2030 if a transitional extension applies. Consequently, Sri Lanka’s exports to the European Union will face Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariff rates by 2030.
How prepared is Sri Lanka to transition out of the EU’s GSP Plus scheme?
The weekend newspaper reports on the preparatory arrangements for the FTA negotiations and lists FTA negotiations planned to pursue, but does not include a possible FTA with the EU. Sri Lanka should have begun exploring alternative paths to secure long-term, sustainable market access to the EU back in 2019, when the country briefly achieved upper-middle-income status. This should have included negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement to cushion the graduation from GSP+. Unfortunately, our trade policy experts have been entirely asleep at the wheel both then and in the years since.
It is also perplexing that influential trade bodies, such as the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Joint Apparel Association Forum, remain silent on this impending crisis. While they are currently vocal regarding the potential impacts of the 22nd Amendment and the Prevention of Terrorism Act on Sri Lanka’s GSP+ status, they have failed to alert or advise the government about the need for a long-term strategy to preserve a level playing field in the EU market. These bodies should take the lead immediately. The stakes are far higher now than they were in 2010, when GSP+ was withdrawn. Then, Sri Lanka transitioned from GSP Plus to the standard GSP framework. This time, the country faces a direct shift to MFN tariffs – the European Union’s least favourable tariff option. (The writer can be reached at [email protected] )
Continue Reading Features Fighting crime while safeguarding democracy now and in the future Published
The government’s determination to tackle corruption, drug trafficking and organised crime is one of the most important challenges it has taken upon itself. The scale of the problem is evident from recent seizures of drugs at sea and at the airport, which indicate the enormous dimensions of the illicit drug trade. The street value of some consignments has reportedly approached staggering sums, running into hundreds of millions of dollars. The financial resources available to those involved in this trade must be immense. Their ability to corrupt individuals and institutions cannot be underestimated. The revelations of the involvement of persons connected with previous governments, their families and even members of the security forces in the drug trade are particularly disturbing. This is not simply a problem of law enforcement. It is a threat to the integrity of the State itself. The government appears to be approaching this challenge more systematically and seriously than any government in the past.
In two public engagements this past week, the President explained the government’s position. The first was a gathering of Buddhist monks and members of other religious communities, at Temple Trees to mark the first anniversary of Ratama Ekata, the national anti-drug programme. The purpose was to brief religious leaders on progress and enlist their support in carrying the message to communities throughout the country. The second was a trade union conference in Colombo, where the President responded to concerns about the proposed anti-terrorism and anti-crime legislation. At both, the President drew a distinction between two groups opposing the proposed laws. One consisted of criminal groups and those who give them patronage and protection. The other consisted of civil society organisations and human rights groups raising concerns from the perspective of democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law. The President said the government was prepared to listen to this second group and discuss the legislation with them, and that these were issues on which discussion and consensus needed to be obtained.
The Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (PSTB) would replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 1979, while the Prevention of Organised Crime Bill (POC Bill) would give the authorities new powers against organised crime. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has personally taken up the task of answering criticism from opposition parties, civil society and international human rights organisations. This shows that the two bills form central pillars of the government’s programme to restore the integrity of the State. However, concerns expressed regarding these two draft laws are substantial. In a 31-page communication made public this week, five United Nations human rights mandates warned that the POC Bill could increase the risk of torture and arbitrary detention. They pointed to police custody of 72 hours before a Magistrate’s review and detention for up to a year in police stations on ministerial authorisation. They also cited the admissibility of confessions to senior police officers, police access to phone records without court approval, surveillance of encrypted communications, and the possibility that trade unionists and protesters could fall within the law.
The President’s offer to reduce the 72-hour period to 48 hours, made in the course of a public speech, is a welcome sign of flexibility. The better test is whether the final text reaches the 24-hour norm of ordinary criminal procedure, or whether detention beyond it requires judicial approval. Sri Lanka’s experience under the PTA shows why this matters. Laws meant for exceptional threats can acquire a much wider application in practice. Bitter experience over nearly four decades has shown that people can spend years in detention without being charged, only eventually to be released without any charges being brought against them. The years they lose in detention can never be returned. They may lose the best and most productive years of their lives, their livelihoods and family relationships, without ever being found guilty of an offence. No subsequent release can compensate them for such a loss. This is precisely the kind of injustice that laws must be designed to prevent, rather than create the conditions in which it can occur.
There is a fundamental principle at stake. The liberty of individuals cannot be entrusted to the unfettered discretion of public officials or security forces. Whenever the State seeks to deprive a person of liberty, the judiciary must have an effective and decisive role. This is not a question of showing leniency towards those suspected of serious crimes. It is recognition that the power to arrest, detain and restrict the liberty of individuals is among the most important powers exercised by the State, and therefore requires the strongest safeguards. Law enforcement authorities must have the powers necessary to investigate and prosecute crime, but they cannot be the sole judges of how long a person may be deprived of liberty. That responsibility must remain firmly anchored in an independent judiciary. The State has a duty to protect society from criminals, but it also has an equally important duty to protect the innocent from the misuse of State power. The credibility of its efforts to combat crime depends on its ability to do both.
The role of the courts therefore needs to be strengthened in both bills. Decisions concerning prolonged detention, access to legal representation, the admissibility of confessions and restrictions on personal liberty should be subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny. The courts must have the authority to examine the necessity and proportionality of measures taken by the police and executive authorities, rather than merely endorse decisions already made by them. The breadth of certain definitions also raises questions about whether individuals could be brought within the ambit of the law on the basis of their associations or other characteristics rather than evidence of criminal conduct. A system in which members of the security establishment can exercise extensive powers while judicial officers have limited ability to intervene would weaken the constitutional safeguards that protect all citizens.
The President’s willingness to engage with civil society and human rights critics is a positive indicator. So is his assurance that the bills will not be rushed through Parliament, but considered only after comprehensive discussion and wider consensus. He has directed the Minister of Justice to engage with stakeholders. The fact that the Supreme Court is considering the PSTB, and that both bills have been challenged on constitutional grounds, provides another important avenue for scrutiny. The government has indicated that it will consider the Court’s determination and proposals for amendment. These developments offer a chance to improve the legislation rather than turn the debate into a confrontation between the government and its critics. The test of the government’s commitment to good governance will be whether it incorporates reasonable criticism into the final laws, including changes to provisions it originally thought necessary.
An aspect of good governance is to bring about changes that will stand the test of time. The government needs to demonstrate that it has effective mechanisms for ensuring that future legislation is subjected to independent scrutiny, meaningful consultation with the Bar Association, trade unions, media bodies, civil society and opposition parties, and rigorous human rights assessment before it reaches Parliament. The credibility of a government is measured not only by its determination to combat crime or its willingness to listen to criticism, but also by the care with which it exercises its legislative powers. Legislation should be built on sound legal foundations, informed public consultation and democratic consensus, rather than corrected only after its weaknesses have become matters of public controversy. Consensus may take longer to build, but the resulting changes are more likely to be accepted, respected and sustained. The challenge is not simply to enact laws that are strong enough to confront organised crime today, but to establish laws and institutions that will protect society and individual liberty under governments of the future.
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