Politically motivated attacks against Attorney General

Attorney General (AG) Parinda Ranasinghe has been facing intense attacks, criticism, as well as slander, particularly through social media. It is quite evident this campaign of defaming the AG is led by forces and sympathisers allied to the NPP Government. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) as well as the Opposition have condemned the acts of insult against Ranasinghe and have accused the ruling party of carrying out a concerted campaign to undermine the authority and credibility of the coveted post.

The cause for the wrath of the NPP sympathisers towards the AG and his department is due to the reported reservations expressed by certain officials of the AG’s department over indicting former President Ranil Wickremesinghe on his alleged misuse of Rs. 16.6 million of State funds during his stopover in the UK in 2023 while returning to Sri Lanka from the official visit to the UN General Assembly. Two weeks ago, our sister newspaper The Sunday Times reported that Deputy Solicitor General (DSG) Wasantha Perera, who had been supervising the probe against the former President and his former secretary Saman Ekanayake, had withdrawn from the controversial inquiry. The DSG had opined that investigations have not unearthed sufficient evidence to charge either Wickremesinghe or any other individual.

On the contrary, the probe’s chief supervising officer had pointed out that criminal charges can be filed against Wickremesinghe based on the available evidence. The Government has already been accused of weaponising the law to harass and intimidate Wickremesinghe.  The investigations against Wickremesinghe are led by Director of the CID Shani Abeysekara, who was appointed to his current post last June. Abeysekara actively extended his support to the NPP at the Presidential election a year ago and it is well known the controversial top detective has a personal resentment towards Wickremesinghe. It is alleged that the CID team had undertaken their much-publicised visit to the UK without obtaining Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) from the UK authorities under the provisions of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to determine whether the invitation reportedly sent to Wickremesinghe by Wolverhampton University to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony was genuine.

Detractors of Wickremesinghe allege that Ranasinghe is biased towards the former as he was appointed during his tenure as President. The leading social media personalities backing the Government have openly called for the removal of Ranasinghe from the position of AG owing to his alleged partiality towards the UNP  Leader.Meanwhile, the BASL in its statement over the public criticism of the AG quite rightly mentioned that the AG performs a quasi-judicial role in criminal matters and is required to decide whether to indict suspects based solely on the evidence presented by investigative authorities and the likelihood of securing a conviction under the law. The AG should be given the freedom of discharging his duties based on his own technical and subject expertise without being intimidated by political parties.

One of the key pledges given by the NPP was to depoliticise the investigating agencies of law but the intimidating tactics of the ruling party sympathisers against the AG run counter to the idealistic rhetoric conveyed before coming into power. Instead of depoliticising, the administration is trying to extend political influence across all vital Government departments as evident by the attempts to appoint a loyalist of the Government to the other AG post – Auditor General - bypassing the most senior ranking officer of the National Audit Office.

Lawyers represent a powerful section of society and attempts to threaten and intimidate the incumbent AG would only tarnish the reputation of the administration, which vowed to break from the past, among civil society as well as professionals. Civic-conscious citizens need to raise their voices against the Government’s moves to undermine independence and authority of the vital State institutions.