“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – Lord Acton
The much-quoted 19th century English historian believed that as people gain more authority, their moral sense tends to weaken and total control removes all limits on corrupt conduct.
Almost every Executive President Sri Lanka has produced since the office was created has, at some point, fallen for its temptations. The tell-tale sign is nearly always the same: an inability to leave the Judiciary alone. J.R. Jayewardene, the very architect of the executive presidency, could not resist handpicking a chief justice. Nearly half a century later, the incumbent, regrettably, is the latest to walk that well-worn path. We say “almost every president” advisedly, because there have been honourable exceptions – D.B. Wijetunga chief among them – proof that restraint was always possible, even if it was rarely exercised.
What makes the current situation different is not the temptation itself, but its scale. The ruling National People’s Power (NPP) holds not only the executive presidency but also a two-thirds parliamentary majority – a combination none of its predecessors possessed in full and one that turns a chronic institutional weakness into something close to a foregone conclusion.
That is how the country has arrived at this impasse: virtually every stakeholder in the justice and legal sector, at home and abroad, has said no to the proposed 22nd Amendment, yet the Government is determined to proceed, regardless. The process has now advanced to the point where the Supreme Court itself must sit in judgment of its own fate – a state of affairs that ought to trouble anyone who values institutional independence, regardless of their politics.
There is something genuinely strange in how the country arrived here. By any reasonable measure, the Government’s top priority should have been the economy – converting the hard-won stability inherited from Ranil Wickremesinghe’s interim administration into a durable phase of growth. Two years since then, that has not happened. GDP growth has instead slipped well below the levels required, casting real doubt on the trajectory of recovery. Rather than devote its energy to the economic transformation that is the precondition for lasting stability, the Government has busied itself with legislation that, however well-intentioned in parts, carries real potential to harm the recovery over the long term.
To be fair, not all of this legislative activity is without merit. Alongside the 22nd Amendment, the Government has introduced or prepared a cluster of major reform bills. The Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill is intended to repeal the long-controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act, narrowing the definition of security offences and introducing stricter protocols and judicial oversight around detention – despite the revised definitions of national security offences remaining too broad.
Amendments to the Anti-Corruption Act would impose mandatory financial penalties of at least three times the value of illegally acquired property, strip convicted officials of non-property privileges such as illegal appointments and titles, and tighten bail conditions for serious bribery cases. The Proceeds of Crime Act introduced earlier has established a standalone asset-recovery framework, empowering law enforcement to trace, freeze, and forfeit the proceeds of corruption, drug trafficking, and money laundering, and expanding the reach of the Bribery Commission. Taken on their own terms, these are largely necessary reforms, in keeping with the times.
What is not so necessary is the fine print that seems designed less for reform than for regime longevity. The Government presented the 22nd Amendment as a response to a backlog of over 1.1 million pending court cases – a genuine and pressing problem. But its hidden upshot appears to be rather more targeted: the ability to cherry-pick the composition of the superior courts.
It arrives alongside the Judicature (Amendment) Bill, which would create new provincial appellate and high courts. The Government insists these changes are needed to eliminate years-long trial delays. The Opposition, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, and other legal bodies see something else: a mechanism by which the Executive could extend its influence over sitting judges. Under existing constitutional provisions, petitioners now have a two-week window to challenge the bill before the Supreme Court.
A similar pattern surrounds the gazetted amendments to the Anti-Corruption Act. Transparency International Sri Lanka and other watchdogs have raised alarm over provisions that would confine the use of publicly disclosed asset and liability information to specific designated authorities – a restriction critics say would effectively criminalise journalists, civil society, and ordinary citizens who rely on published declarations for investigation, reporting, or public debate.
The draft bill also grants the Bribery Commission expanded discretion to redact or withhold financial details before releasing declarations, and would loosen disclosure requirements for cohabiting partners and close family members. To its credit, the Government has since indicated in Parliament that it will revise these clauses, promising that politicians and elected representatives will remain subject to full public disclosure even as privacy protections are recalibrated for lower-level civil servants.
All of this is unfolding in an economic environment that is conspicuously short of stimulation, which in fact is the need of the hour. If anything, these measures risk further dampening growth, because steps that strengthen the State’s grip on power tend to corrode the progressive, predictable democratic environment in which both investors and tourists actually thrive.
The survival of any government ultimately rests on one thing: how well it manages the economy and how people feel that management in their daily lives. Political promises and parliamentary supermajorities mean very little to someone struggling to put food on the table. When the wolf is at the door, political loyalty can evaporate almost overnight as Sri Lanka saw in 2022, when economic hardship brought a Government with an even larger mandate to its knees within weeks.
The IMF programme has given the country a genuine lifeline and a path towards stability. But stabilisation was only ever meant to be the beginning – the first step in a long process. The real test is converting it into sustained growth: more jobs, higher incomes, and a better quality of life. A government that takes its political capital for granted does so at its own risk, because people judge governments not by their rhetoric but by what shows up in their wallets. To underline the point, inflation increased to 7.3% in July compared to 6.8% the previous month, with food-related inflation rising to 4.9% from 3.3% in June.
This raises the question: is the NPP, like Nero, fiddling while another economic fire gathers? The country’s priority ought to be hitting its economic targets and it is nowhere near doing so. Yet the Government’s energy has gone into constitutional tinkering that has very little to do with economic stimulation and everything to do with entrenchment. Even if every amendment passes as drafted, the Government will still need to begin repaying its foreign creditors within 16 months.
Two years into its term, reserves stand roughly where they were when Wickremesinghe left office. So, what exactly is the plan to more than double reserves to the IMF-specified target of $ 15 billion by 2028? Rhetoric plays well domestically, but the country remains some $ 8 billion short of what it needs for that repayment schedule and neither social media bravado nor a two-thirds majority will close that gap. Nor will the familiar refrain of blaming the previous administration. It is for this reason that Wickremesinghe’s recent warning carries weight.
Wickremesinghe has pointed to his own legislative record – the Central Bank Act, Public Financial Management Act, Public Debt Management Act, and Economic Transformation Act – as the framework built to ensure stability and future growth and has argued that the current Government has quietly shelved this economic transformation programme without offering any alternative of its own. He has described the reckoning due after 2028 as the next biggest challenge, warning that failure to overcome it would leave the country in serious trouble once again.
The numbers actually provide credibility to that warning. Reserves currently stand at $ 6.5 billion, with $ 1.5 billion of it being unusable Chinese financing. The IMF’s ninth and final tranche concludes in just over six months, by March 2027. By 2028, Sri Lanka must begin servicing its external debt – a point at which the Government will need to demonstrate not just intent but genuine repayment capacity.
Ultimately, a government’s responsibility is to deliver consistent, results-driven performance, not constitutional tinkering or political theatre. Citizens deserve leadership that is competent and focused on solutions rather than gallery talk from politicians. And on that score, the verdict is already visible: none of the constitutional amendments currently in motion will add a single rupee to economic growth. If anything, the proposed amendments risk stifling it – not least by jeopardising the GSP+ trade facility now due for review.