Tracking Sri Lankan Judicial Cases

The Sri Lankan judiciary isn’t known for being fast and effective, with major issues being the long delays of cases and lack of convictions. Many cases drag on for years. It is reported that the average time taken from committing a crime to its high court judgement is 10.2 years. As a result of these issues, I think there should be a trilingual website that holds the Sri Lankan judiciary to account using information in the public domain similar to Manthri.lk by Verité Research that holds Sri Lankan parliamentarians to account. Websites and web pages holding the Sri Lankan government to account, have been increasing this year. Examples of this include the page tracking Sri Lanka’s Open Government Partnership commitments by Transparency International Sri Lanka, the Food Tax Tracker by Advocata Institute, a page on Manthri.lk tracking parliamentary election promises and the website Budget Promises by Verité Research that tracks Sri Lanka’s annual budget promises. A similar website for the Sri Lankan judiciary would add to the growing trend of Sri Lankan websites holding the government to account. I’ll now go into my ideas of how the site could function.

This site would have pages to give details of public interest cases such as cases of bribery and corruption. These pages would give summaries of what has been happening on the case with a link to news articles on the Internet for each point. The summaries could be the accused summoned to an anti-corruption agency, arrested, released on bail, indicted, called to court etc. If it’s possible and not too expensive, there could be an artificial intelligence (AI) component that goes through news stories from a list of sites and then sends the links to the team behind the site. The AI component would send the site team the list of articles from news sites, and the team would go through those articles and put the article or articles that they think is best suited on the case page. The team could also not post a single story from the AI suggestions if they find the AI suggestions to not give valid stories and they also could add stories on their own account if important news about the case has been breaking, but the AI is not picking this information up.

In additional to pages on public interest cases, there would be pages that offer general statistics on Sri Lanka’s judicial system. Those interested in Sri Lanka’s judicial system who look at both pages on public interest cases and general statistics can see if there are improvements or if things are getting worse. This opens the possibility for a wide range of analysis and observations of Sri Lanka’s judicial system. Trends could be spotted such as if certain cases take longer or are less likely to secure a prosecution. This site could also show if a case is progressing at a faster pace than expected.

Those in the government may look at the site, especially people working on court cases, which could result in them making improvements to the judicial system from seeing problems of the system displayed in the site.

If you think you are capable of creating or being involved in such a website, I encourage you to work towards making this site a reality. It will give Sri Lankans important information on the state of the judiciary. People will be able to look up cases they have an interest in, find out important information about the state of the judiciary & draw conclusions and the site’s existence brings about the possibility of a better judicial system for Sri Lanka.

Opportunities for Sri Lanka in 2017 After Recent Disappointments

I’m writing this at the end of 2016 looking at Sri Lankan issues from a political angle. I’ll start by mentioning recent disappointments from my perspective that happened in the last 3 months of 2016. I don’t intend to go into detail discussing or explaining them in this article. These recent disappointments include the President’s controversial speech at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, the recent emergence of racial crimes & hatred, issues regarding the Government & Police’s response to these incidents, the Inspector General of Police being caught on a phone call implying he’s protecting someone under investigation, the possibility of increased fines for traffic violations cancelled due to a strike by private bus companies, a strike at the Hambantota port, the Navy Commander assaulting a journalist at that strike etc.

I think it is important that the Sri Lankan Government resolve the problems arising from these issues. This Government really needs to deliver in 2017 in light of these issues, and as more needs to be done based on what they were voted in for. On the positive side, there are some events set to take place in 2017 that could bring real benefits to Sri Lanka. Firstly, the Cabinet recently approved a yearly event National Integration and Reconciliation Week beginning from the 8th to the 14th of January 2017. This event will be promoting national integration among school children, creating sensitisation and awareness in the media in all three languages, encouraging the private sector to be involved in integration programs, north south dialogue & inter-village exchange programs and a competition to promote national integration.

As expected in January, Sri Lanka will lease Hambantota port to a Chinese firm raising about USD 1.12 billion which should help Sri Lanka pay off the USD 8 billion owed to China for the development projects under the previous regime. I hope that the Chinese firm will be able to make the Hambantota port profitable to bring more benefits than just the money. In June 2016, the Right to Information (RTI) Bill was passed in Parliament. The RTI Act will come into effect on Independence Day, 4th February 2017. It is from that day onward when citizens can file RTI requests, making the Government more open to its citizens.

The Sri Lankan Cabinet passed the Open Government Partnership (OGP) plan in October 2016. The OGP plan gives a 12-commitment national policy plan and sets up a steering committee to monitor its implementation headed by both the President and the Prime Minister. This national policy plan has a schedule until June 2018. Member countries of OGP, in endorsing the OGP Declaration, show a commitment to “foster a global culture of open government that empowers and delivers for citizens, and advances the ideals of open and participatory 21st century government.”

A promise of the 100 day program was a Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians, which still hasn’t been made law. There is some hope as the Code of Conduct was mentioned in the Sri Lankan media recently, and it was tabled and presented in Parliament on the 10th of December. This gives an indication that it will get passed in Parliament in the next 6 months, providing it gets enough votes. Sri Lanka is working on a new constitution right now and it’s possible that the new constitution will get completed or at least make real progress next year. The Megapolis project is in its early stages right now, and I hope to see much progress on it next year.  

So these are some of the opportunities for Sri Lanka based on events set to occur in 2017. I don’t have any idea how 2017 will play out for Sri Lanka, but if the Government is mostly successful in the opportunities I mentioned, as well as in other events, 2017 could be a good year for Sri Lanka, compared to 2016.