(Hong Kong, January 10, 2008) Sri Lanka needs a popular mass movement which is not affiliated to any political parties to fight against lawlessness and to re-establish the rule of law said Mr. J.C. Weliamuna, a lawyer who also heads Transparency International Sri Lanka, while attending a meeting in Hong Kong of a group of concerned Sri Lankans. Mr. Weliamuna went on to say, There is today a realisation across all sectors of society that there is no respect for law in our country and even the constitution has been disregarded with impunity. The result is a massive growth of corruption which has begun to disturb all areas of life. This is a very unusual and a tremendously disturbing situation which needs to be remedied now or it will be too late. That is why we all agreed that it is very urgent to build a close link with people from all walks of life who are suffering under this situation to come together to find ways to struggle peacefully to reverse this trend. Unfortunately, the political parties of Sri Lanka are also very much a part of this corruption. Therefore it is only a popular movement of men and women from all walks of life, lawyers, judges, doctors, university lecturers, the teachers, workers and the poorest people in the urban and rural sectors that should unite their hands to deal with this serious national problem.
This group of concerned persons engaged in a study tour to interact with Hong Kongs Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) which has proved to be one of the worlds most successful institutions in the fight against corruption. The members of the group said that this was a tremendous experience and that it shows that corruption can be defeated. If there was a system of corruption control in Sri Lanka like the ICAC, Sri Lankas development would take a great leap, said Victor Ivan, a well known Sri Lankan journalist who also attended this meeting.
There is no adequate allocation of funds to run a successful anti corruption work, said Justice Ismail, who is presently the Chairperson of the Bribery Commission of Sri Lanka. He further said that, though we work very hard there are serious problems on the way. There are deficiencies in the interpretation of the word corruption when compared to the concept of misconduct that is used in Hong Kong. He also mentioned that there had been some reports done by experts who pointed out that though the commission claims to be independent, it is not really so as there are structural limitations on independence.
There are a lot of limitations in the way the parliamentary committee system works in Sri Lanka at the moment, said the Member of Parliament, Wijedasa Rajapakse, the Chairperson of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) whos famous COPE report raised many important issues regarding corruption involving billions of Rupees in Sri Lanka. Other countries have very efficient systems which give the parliamentary committees a lot of power to deal with problems such as corruption, he said. He pointed out that, unfortunately in Sri Lanka, instead of acting on committee reports, members of parliament who act with independence and submit such reports after a lot of hard work are themselves victimized.
The group agreed that things have reached a point when it is not possible to continue in the manner the has been prevalent in Sri Lanka, particularly since the 1978 Constitution and that the system as it stands now seems to be geared to assist political leaders in plundering public property for their own personal benefit. All the people are suffering because of this and therefore it is only natural that all the people will want it to end. Therefore, a broad coalition involving everyone must to be brought together to resolve this problem. It has to be non-political since people have lost faith in the political parties. The groups agreed that what we want is positive action and not mere criticism. We need to look for long term as well as short term strategies to end lawlessness and corruption. There needs to be police, judicial, public service and other forms of institutional reforms. We must ask ourselves as to how we want the country to look in a few years from now.
This study programme was organised by the Asian Human Rights Commission in collaboration with Transparency International Sri Lanka.
