Daily Mirror Editorial

Death to death penalty

10th October 2015

Amid growing calls and even a private member’s motion in Parliament for the reimplementation of the death penalty in the aftermath of the brutal rape and killing of a five-year-old girl in Kotadeniyawa, we mark today the International Day against the Death Penalty.

In these modern and hopefully enlightened times, the death penalty is a complex issue with religious, moral and emotional aspects with lots of grey areas.

Issuing a statement to mark the day, the European Union’s delegation in Sri Lanka has quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s famous warning that the reaction of an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. The EU says it believes that the death penalty is a cruel and ineffective punishment and therefore, it needs to be opposed in all circumstances. The death penalty represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and violates the right to life universally affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Its worldwide abolition is a priority, EU says. So far, 101 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

The EU has welcomed the announcement by Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha that Sri Lanka would vote in favour of the United Nations General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the Death Penalty. Sri Lanka currently has more than 400 prisoners under sentence of death. The EU has called on Sri Lankans to make our voices heard and be a part of the solution and not part of the problem. Last year, at least 22 countries around the world carried out executions and at least 2,466 people were sentenced to death – an increase of 28%, the EU says, pointing out that death penalty is irreversible. “Mistaken identity and wrongful convictions do happen. Many death sentences are issued after confessions obtained by torture. Innocent people die. You are more likely to be sentenced to death if you are poor or belong to an ethnic or religious minority,” the EU adds.

Responding to a massive, if not unprecedented, national outcry over the rape and murder of the girl-child in Kotadeniyawa last month, President Maithripala Sirisena said that though he had the power to order the reimplementation of the death penalty, especially for brutal crimes against children, he would seek guidance from Parliament where there were 225 representatives of the people. When Parliament met last month, the young and outspoken lawyer Parliamentarian Hirunika Premachandra introduced a motion for the implementation of the death penalty for those found guilty of raping and killing children. She introduced a motion on behalf of Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake who represents the Gampaha District and thereby Kotadeniyawa which is in the Divulapitiya electorate.

However, in Parliament this week Justice Minister Rajapaksha indicated that the National Government, working on yahapalanaya or maithripalanaya principles, was not likely to re-implement the death penalty which has a long history in Sri Lanka. The British, who ruled Sri Lanka from 1815 to 1948, restricted the death penalty to the crimes of murder, and waging war against the King or Queen. After independence, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike abolished capital punishment in 1956. However, in a mysterious twist of fate, Mr. Bandaranaike himself was assassinated on September 26, 1959 and the death penalty was reintroduced with his assassin being hanged. When opposition to the death penalty began to grow again, the United National Party Government, under President J. R. Jayawardene, changed the capital punishment clause in the 1978 Constitution. Under the new arrangement, death sentences could only be carried out if authorised by the trial judge, the Attorney General and the minister of Justice. If there was no agreement, the sentence was to be commuted to life imprisonment. The sentence must also to be ratified by the President. This clause effectively ended executions.

In line with religious and moral values, the Buddha Dhamma with its philosophy of making all beings happy is clearly not in favour of killing. We see this powerfully in the well-known Angulimala story where Gautama the Buddha, long before Western Civilisations, effectively applied the principles of restorative justice instead of retributive justice. It made history. Likewise, Pope Francis, in a historic address to a joint session of the United States Congress, called on the world’s most powerful country to abolish the death penalty. History is full of examples of where sinners or killers, transformed by the amazing grace of love and mercy, have become arahats or saints.  

Daily News Editorial

Posers on vehicle duties

10th October 2015

A major controversy has arisen over the Government's recent decision to increase duties and taxes on a number of vehicles including some of the most popular hybrid models. There are pros and cons of this move, which has seen the prices of these vehicles go up between Rs.600,000 to Rs.1.2 million, not counting the effects of currency fluctuations.

With more than 70,000 vehicles of all types entering the roads every month, our road network is at breaking point especially in the Western Province where most of the vehicles are registered. From the authorities' point of view, a measure of control over the vehicle population is desirable. One also has to take into consideration the revenue imperatives of the Government, because these taxes are used for many aspects of development. Another possible benefit is that the new taxes will encourage the import of mostly brand new vehicles, because the consumer price difference between reconditioned and new cars will be minimal. In other words, it will no longer be profitable to import older cars well past their prime.

But at the same time, one has to respect the right of all citizens to purchase a motor vehicle in a democracy. When income levels go up, people naturally want to climb up the social ladder and a vehicle is one of those goals. The other reason that everyone aspires to buy a vehicle is the notoriously unreliable nature of the public transport system in this country. It is a nightmare to travel by bus or train in the morning/evening rush hour and most people opt to buy at least a motorcycle to get to their workplaces and run other errands on time.

Rather than imposing ad-hoc taxes, the time has come to take stock of the big picture of vehicle imports and usage in this country. Imposing more taxes on vehicles, especially hybrids, could be counter-productive in the long run. After all, duty concessions were granted for these vehicles because they could run more kilometres per litre of fuel and thus save foreign exchange spent on fuel imports. With the proposed duty increase, the authorities run the risk of driving people away from hybrids, especially in instances where an equivalent petrol-only model is available. The Mitsubishi Outlander is a perfect example - under the new duty system, the plug-in hybrid version will cost at least Rs.3 million more than the petrol version. This almost amounts to punishing the customer for opting for a more environmentally-friendly, less fuel consuming vehicle. One would rather pump fuel with that Rs.3 million - which ultimately defeats the whole purpose of popularizing hybrids. The authorities should therefore re-think the duties and taxes on hybrids.

Ad-hoc tax changes have another negative effect - when the taxes are lowered, private car importers get into a frenzy and import thousands of cars at once. Each so-called 'car-sale' has hundreds of cars awaiting customers and despite having so many cars in stock, they import even more units, which results in a foreign exchange crunch. The authorities should formulate a mechanism to ensure that excess numbers of cars are not imported. There should be an application and inspection procedure which ensures that an importer cannot import new units of a particular model if he already has unsold units of the same model. The 'car sale' model is not economically sustainable in the long run as it is basically an uncontrollable juggernaut at present. On the other hand, sole agents bring down cars strictly on the orders they receive, apart from a few display and demonstrator models. That is a more economically viable system.

In the end, it is much better to have a uniform tax policy for vehicles for at least five years at one stretch, which generally tempers the demand and regulates the influx of vehicles. In the days when taxes and duties on all petrol vehicles amounted to a blanket 100 percent on all engine sizes, there was hardly a surge in imports unlike now when importers try to "make hay while the sun shines".

To give praise where it is due, the authorities rightly deserve plaudits for lowering the duty on all-electric cars to just 5 percent, which was a move in the right direction. We hope this will continue without an interruption. Again, this good move will be negated if all these cars draw electricity from the National Grid which is fed mostly by fossil fuels. The Government must grant duty free concessions for rapid DC chargers and solar charging stations, which will lessen the dependence on fossil duel generated mains electricity.

The authorities were also right to lower duties on 1000 CC or less cars through the last budget, but they are still way too high at around 155 percent. These cars' fuel efficiency levels are almost on par with those of hybrids. If these cars are made more affordable, there is every possibility of three wheelers - those totally unsafe contraptions - going off the road for good. That in itself will be a major achievement of a more enlightened vehicle import policy which is sorely needed at this juncture. 

The Island Editorial

Haka vs Sipi Tau

10th October 2015

A protest threw Parliament into turmoil on Thursday again with the government big guns and the UPFA rebels locking horns over a statement former Minister Dinesh Gunawardena sought to make on the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

The protesters took exception to two terms, ‘pimps’ and ‘gypsies’, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe used to describe some Opposition MPs. Interestingly, the ruckus occurred on the very day a live telecast of parliamentary proceedings began. The public who cared to watch it may have seen how their representatives conducted themselves in Parliament.

The UPFA rebels who claim to be the real Opposition and pugnacious UNP MPs have the habit of squaring up to each other at the drop of a hat. What we have, of late, witnessed in Parliament is like the famous Haka-Sipi Tau showdown which preceded a World Cup rugby encounter between All Blacks and Tongans some years ago. Their war dances turned out to be more entertaining than the ball game they played!

A few years ago, the then Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, in his wisdom, had a video wall put up close to Parliament for proceedings to be telecast live. We predicted, in these columns, that the telecast would not last long as the Opposition was sure to use it to embarrass the Rajapaksa government. And, it was discontinued after a few days. It, however, served some purpose—as a form of public entertainment with legislators bellowing rhetoric, trading abuse and exchanging blows!

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, on Thursday, lashed out at some Opposition MPs for being unruly and ridiculed them for having piggybacked on the UPPA to enter Parliament. Piggyback rides are only too common in Sri Lankan politics. After all, that is what coalition politics are all about.

The UNP piggybacked on former Army Commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka in 2010. He fell flat on his face in the race and others, too, had nasty pratfalls. They nursed their derriere for five years until an opportunity presented itself for them to piggyback on Maithripala Sirisena last January.

Time was when the Opposition MPs were insulted in a far worse manner in Parliament. Under the Rajapaksa government some years ago, the then Minister Dilan Perera called a UNP MP gigolo. Nobody staged a walk-out. Former JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe once likened the two main parties to kerb-crawlers. Little did he realise that implication of his analogy was that smaller parties including the JVP he was leading at that time were twilight women, as it were, ready to be picked up.

The government never misses an opportunity to stress the need for politicians to emulate Licchavis, who in compliance with the Buddha’s exhortations, assembled in harmony, discussed in harmony and dispersed in harmony. Licchavis did not call one another pimps, old pumpkins, gypsies, woodpeckers etc, did they?

The UPFA rebels’ protest eclipsed the most important issue raised in Parliament on Thursday. MP Gunawardena said many Central Bank (CB) officials had been transferred because they had given evidence against the CB Governor in respect of the controversial bond issue. He considered it an instance of political victimisation. The government vehemently denied the charge, claiming that the transfers were routine. Issues of this nature should be debated in Parliament as there is no other way to clear doubts in the minds of the people. The government said there was a need for a parliamentary select committee to inquire into the alleged malpractices at the CBSL under the Rajapaksa government. It must do so forthwith. The people have a right to know what has been happening at that institution.

Frequent clashes between the UPFA rebels and the government point to the fact that the national government is not properly cemented and the political marriage between the UNP and the SLFP is under severe strain. The UPFA dissidents are all out to consolidate their position as the de facto Opposition with the TNA and the JVP not making an effort to take on the government the way they should, for obvious reasons.

As for the allegation that the Opposition MPs’ rights are being suppressed, one may say the boot is on the other foot. A party cannot remain in power till kingdom come. What befell the Rajapaksa government is a case in point. It behoves the wielders of power to act with responsibility without running roughshod over their opponents.