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By Basil Fernando Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville is the famous author of the book Democracy in America. It is one of the world’s best known writings which have been appreciated by many philosophers, writers, thinkers and also people in many countries. It has also been translated into many languages.  Tocqueville was a […]

By Basil Fernando The sentencing of a former Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police for giving illegal orders not to arrest a suspect. The reported sentencing of former Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police, Lalith Jayasinghe, for giving illegal orders to prevent the arrest of a person allegedly involved in the shooting which resulted in […]

By Basil Fernando This story is about Junious. Please do not think that I made a mistake in naming the hero and misspelling Junious for genius. I quite understand some people’s misunderstanding of that sort because an impression has been created and kept for a long time that Junious was in fact the genius. That […]

By Basil Fernando A month or so earlier, it was a lawyer practicing mainly in a High Court closer to Colombo, that contacted me and told me about his concerns about a draft Bill which has been discussed amongst his colleagues which was about the introduction a draft of a Contempt of Court Bill. He […]

By Basil Fernando This article is  a follow up to: 1. Does the proposed contempt of court Bill amount to 23rd amendment to the constitution?     2.  Is contempt of court unlike any other crime? To anyone who may be surprised by this question, we wish to remind that not too long ago, the issue became […]

By Basil Fernando On the larger questions raised by the arrest of Tharindu Uduwaragedera, a young journalist of very wide reputation. Tharindu Uduwaragedera who was attending a meeting on Friday (28 July) for the purpose of reporting on the meeting was forcibly dragged out of a three-wheeler, grabbed by his hair and roughly manhandled by […]

By Basil Fernando The purpose of the proposed Bill on the Contempt of Court is to criminalise the acts which may be considered to constitute the offence of contempt of court and to punish it. Clearly, this proposed Bill is meant to create offences under the contempt of court and therefore the purpose is to create […]

By Basil Fernando This article is  a follow up to:  The caste-based culture is still the key obstacle for development in Sri Lanka The debate on how important caste consciousness is in Sri Lanka today and whether class consciousness has replaced caste consciousness requires that we briefly examine the the beginnings of capitalism in Sri Lanka, […]

By Basil Fernando The draft Bill entitled ‘Contempt of Court, Tribunal or Institutions’, has been included in the parliament’s order paper and the issue of the constitutionality of this Bill will now be subjected to debate. There are several key questions arising from this draft Bill. These are:- Does this proposed law amounts to repeal […]

By Basil Fernando Over a long period, many erudite scholars and critics have engaged with the issue of the extent to which caste remained a relevant factor in understanding social development in Sri Lanka. One could sum up broadly the overwhelming view among such writers as being that while caste influences still remain in some […]

By Basil Fernando A strange experiment that has been taking place in Sri Lanka for several decades now has reached a peak as the present government is engaged in rapidly bringing out a series of extremely bad laws purportedly for the sake of rapidly becoming a better society. The plethora of such laws that is […]

බැසිල් ප්‍රනාන්දු නීතියමත පාලනය පිළිබදව වර්ථමාන කාලය තුල ලිය වී ඇති පොත් අතර ඉතාමත් ප්‍රසිද්ධියට පත් පොතක් වූයේ ටොම් බින්ග්හම් (Tom Bingham) සාමිවරයා විසින් ලියන ලද නීතිය මත පාලනය (The Rule of Law) යන පොතය. එම පොත නීතිය මත පාලනය යන නමින් සිංහලට පරිවර්ථනය කොට ඇත. එම පොතෙහි නීතිය මත පාලනය යන්න පිළිබදව ඇති නිර්වචනයය […]

By Basil Fernando Read the article in Sinhala මෙම ලිපිය සිංහලෙන් කියවන්න As Sri Lanka is to celebrate its 75th anniversary of Independence on the 4th of February, the general reaction of the people around the country this year is one of despondency with serious criticisms about the failure of governance in the country.  The need […]

By Basil Fernando Illegal arrests and illegal detentions do not only harm individuals, they also cause irreparable damage to the legal system as a whole. The recent wave of arrests of those who have participated in peaceful demonstrations has not only caused serious damage to the life and liberty of these individuals but they have […]

By Basil Fernando A declaration of emergency means suspensions of all the laws which normally operate within a country for the protection of the people. A declaration of emergency takes away all the basic protections which are considered essential to the normal functioning of the society. Lawlessness is declared to be normal under a period […]

By Basil Fernando As people began to learn about the terrible consequences of the dollar crisis, there also emerged a political slogan that seemed to suit the occasion. “Gota Go Home” became the slogan and in no time it became the rallying cry from almost everyone throughout the country. There appeared at the time there […]

By Basil Fernando At the moment, the general discussion in Sri Lanka is about the formation of a new Government. Practically speaking, that is the most immediate and urgent task. As there are many views expressed on that issue, we will not comment on it, and we assume that this issue will be resolved soon. […]

By Basil Fernando A peaceful mass uprising on 9th July 2022 has brought about the end of a political era which started with the promulgation of the 1978 constitution of Sri Lanka: that constitution completely undermined democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the country. During a period of continuous protests over 3 […]

By Basil Fernando Politics in Sri Lanka mostly consists of the making of speeches at every place. There is lot of talk in the Parliament and there is also a lot of talk in the media shows. However, no real form of governance is taking place in the country. There is no direct relationship between […]

By Basil Fernando The amendment of a constitution is a serious task. However, some may argue that it is not such an important task as far as Sri Lanka is concerned. That is because of the most trivialized manner in which Constitutional Amendments have been brought about in Sri Lanka in the recent years. However, […]