brand logo

End trials by media in Sri Lanka 

21 Jun 2021

By Michael Mendis    Now that the dust has settled, it is time to reflect on why the drama surrounding event organiser Chandimal Jayasinghe’s birthday party matters. Many felt the story received unwarranted media attention – but perhaps there are important lessons to be learned.    Equality before the law  In recent weeks, the media reported three civilian deaths with at least some involvement of the Police. Two of those deaths involved violations of Covid-19-related restrictions. One of them involved a man being brutally assaulted as two Policemen look on and ride away in their service bike. While he lay unconscious on the road, a bus runs him over and kills him. The other victim was arrested by the Panadura Police while in violation of travel restrictions. According to the Police, while being taken to the Station, he had opened the vehicle door and jumped to his death. The officers related to both incidents have been interdicted, pending inquiries for negligence and the dereliction of duty.  The same day as Jayasinghe’s infamous birthday party, the Kurunegala Mayor was also given a birthday celebration – within Police premises and with the area’s Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) presiding. En route to compulsory quarantine, model Piumi Hansamali, an invitee of Jayasinghe to his party, made this demand through her phone - “We didn’t sell drugs or kill anyone, so why are we being treated like this just for a party?”. Few watching her tirade had any sympathy to spare. At least one gentleman beside her wondered out loud - “Where’s Madhavee?” - indicating that not all who attended the party had been treated the same. To be fair, Madhavee Anthony, the daughter of actor Jackson Anthony and a fledgling celebrity in her own right, was produced in Court days later. The Kurunegala Mayor however was not. The Kurunegala ASP was transferred, but not arrested. On the other hand, as seen above, at least two men came upon their very violent deaths in the context of violating travel restrictions.  These stories are tricky, entangled threads; perhaps, they lead to a single tragedy — of the state of our justice system. It is a familiar saying among lawyers that justice varies with the length of the chancellor’s foot. In Sri Lanka’s case, it could depend on the officer’s whims, the offender’s influence, or even the public’s appetite for gossip. Our Constitution says that everyone is equal before the law; our experience says some are more equal than others.    Discussing cases in media violates fair trial rights  An important rule within the criminal justice system is the concept of contempt by publication (aka sub judice contempt). Under this rule, details of ongoing court proceedings are not to be published in the media until such proceedings are concluded in court. If the decision is appealed against, the rule applies again until the appeal is concluded.  The rationale behind sub judice contempt is obvious. Publishing details of ongoing proceedings can jeopardise them. Every person accused of a crime is entitled to a fair trial, which is violated if the evidence against them is introduced not in court but on a television (TV) channel. Similarly, ‘trial by the media’ blocks a fair trial. When the whole population is exposed to sensationalised, often distorted facts through gossip sites, the defendant has no opportunity to cross-examine them, so they have to either bear their weight silently or take to a tirade on social media. More perversely, when different people are convinced variously on the guilt and innocence of the accused, the presiding judge is under ‘social’ pressure from both sides to both convict and acquit – either way, part of the population will be unhappy with the outcome, and, overtime, faith in courts will erode and fair trials will start feeling like a farce.  Contempt of court is a serious offence. Former Parliamentarian Ranjan Ramanayake was sentenced to four years in prison for having claimed that most judges are corrupt. Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Ven. Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thero was also imprisoned a few years ago when he disrupted proceedings in the Homagama Magistrate’s Court (though he was later pardoned by the President). Both cases involved charges of contempt of court, which cover a few types of behaviour: insulting judges and questioning their impartiality; physically disrupting the decorum within a courtroom; and, more relevantly to our discussion, publicising details related to ongoing cases.    Police frequently in contempt of court  In Sri Lanka, the Police routinely releases information about criminal cases to the media. Often, the Police Media Spokesman himself fields questions from the media in detail. Other times, footage of arrests and searches are telecast on TV at length: close-up shots of kilos of seized narcotics; people without face masks being carried by their limbs into Police jeeps; and a man violating curfew ordered by a Policeman to run back home with his carrom board on his head. On the day Jayasinghe’s arrest was reported, the Police Media Spokesman reassured the public that other participants would be identified through closed circuit TV (CCTV) footage and brought to justice. Within days, the CCTV footage was splattered across the media, but not a single outlet explained how they came by the footage. It is illegal to record video of court proceedings, but when Jayasinghe and Hansamali were produced in Court via Zoom technology, the laptop was set up, seemingly by the Police, on a table facing the Court’s gate, in plain sight of journalists and their inquisitive cameras. Videos of their Court appearance, surrounded by Police officers, are everywhere on the Internet. However, at a later point, when the suspect parties attempted to speak to the media while boarding the Prisons Department bus, the Police intervened robustly – even as one suspect yelled, “No, we have a right to speak to the media.”  These examples describe an unhealthy relationship between the Police and the media and the seeming lack of a clear policy within the Sri Lanka Police on what information is released to the media in relation to ongoing cases. From the perspective of the sub judice rule, much of the Police work discussed in public would have to be sequestered until the relevant proceedings terminate in court. But this is not the case – which leads to the serious question - is the Sri Lanka Police in contempt of court?    Enforcement by spectacle  Think about it. In comparison with the number of arrests we hear every day (usually from the Police Media Spokesman himself), how often do we hear about a successful conviction in the news? If Sri Lankans spend precious tax rupees every year on maintaining our Police Department, do we not deserve to hear more convictions? Imagine a Sri Lanka where the sub judice principle is strictly enforced, at least against the Police Department. If Police investigations continued to fail in securing successful convictions, we would hear less and less from the Police with each passing day – perhaps the Police may even fade into obsolescence. In other words, today, the saturation of our media with reports of various arrests, searches and seizures is obscuring an uncomfortable fact about the Police: they rarely secure successful convictions, especially against serious offenders like drug lords, organised criminals, and corrupt politicians.  While news of successful convictions are rare, news of arrests of the less powerful and less influential people are regular. This is nothing new for Sri Lankans; we know we are not, in practice, all equal before the law. Still, each time the public hears of another powerless person being hounded by the Police, they hear it in the context of all the arrests that have not happened, strengthening the feeling that the powerless are being made examples of while the powerful remain free. This state of affairs foments in the public a hunger for justice that will eventually prioritise the spectacle of enforcement over the importance of due process.  In such a context, offering up people like Hansamali and Jayasinghe to satisfy the public’s hunger for justice amounts almost to a blood offering. But such ploys have a broader impact on our justice system, specifically by affording the Police unlimited leeway in propagating their own narrative of the criminal justice process and countering any criticism of their work. For example, when Hansamali and her cohorts were sent on compulsory quarantine a day after the Court released them on bail, it seemed that the Police, under pressure from the public, was making a show of meting out justice. As the Police Media Spokesman has stated repeatedly, quarantine is not a punishment, but a medical measure determined by the health authorities. Yet, he himself has publicly admitted that the Police recommended the quarantining of Hansamali and others to the health authorities — even as the Kurunegala Mayor was allowed by the Police to self-quarantine at home. So, while inattentive segments of the public may feel that justice was served by Hansamali being taken into quarantine, in reality, the incident is but another example of unequal treatment by the Police on display in broad daylight.  These inequalities are not merely theoretical. They reverberate through the system and embolden Police officers at the ground level. While some felt the Hansamali saga distracted attention from the Police-related deaths of civilians, we argue that they reflect a single phenomenon – of how Police power is corrupt in Sri Lanka, and how its many abuses of process have very real impacts on the lives of innocent people. When the institution is seen bending the law to the breaking point on live TV, naturally, subordinate officers acquire a disproportionate sense of power. The abuse of Police power has been unchecked for too long. It has dreadful consequences, leading to custodial deaths and the maiming of detainees. Even if the Police are disciplined, their employment is terminated, and even if they are jailed, will any of this return the dead men to their families?    (The writer is a Researcher at the Law and Society Trust [LST]. The views of the writer do not necessarily reflect the views of the LST and its Board) 


More News..