Unfinished business of justice

Tuesday, 19 August 2025 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The death of former deputy minister Lohan Ratwatte, who passed away of natural causes, has inevitably prompted reflection on the long shadow of impunity in Sri Lanka’s political and judicial systems. While his passing is no doubt a personal tragedy for his family, for the country it is yet another reminder of how those accused of the gravest crimes often escape accountability and how Sri Lanka’s judiciary has failed and continues to fail to deliver meaningful justice to victims of serious crimes committed by those with political and financial affluence.

Ratwatte’s name has for decades been synonymous with allegations of violence, corruption, and abuse of power. Alongside his brother, he was charged with the cold-blooded killing of 10 Muslim men on election day in 2001—a heinous act that to date is recorded as the single most deadly election related incident in post-independence history. Despite overwhelming evidence and five years of proceedings, both brothers were acquitted, in what many saw as yet another chapter in the long and shameful history of judicial failure. Two security personnel attached to the Ratwattes were found guilty for this crime only to be exonerated in 2009, leaving zero accountability for the cold-blooded killing of 10 men.

This was not the first time Ratwatte’s name was linked to bloodshed. In 1997, he was among the key suspects in the murder of Papua New Guinean rugby player Joel Pera in Colombo, a case that similarly ended without accountability. More recently, as deputy minister of prison affairs in 2021, he was accused of taking a female companion into a prison and threatening Tamil inmates at gunpoint—a grotesque abuse of State power that should have led to his immediate dismissal and prosecution. Instead, as so often in his career, he walked away unscathed.

His life story is not merely one of an individual’s wrongdoing, but a symbol of the broader rot within Sri Lanka’s political and judicial systems. Ratwatte thrived in a culture where political connections, family name, and sheer thuggery outweighed the rule of law. That culture allowed him, and many like him, to evade justice again and again, leaving victims and their families without redress.

It is often said that we should not speak ill of the dead. Yet silence, too, is a form of complicity. To acknowledge Ratwatte’s misdeeds is not to dishonour the dead, but to honour the living who continue to suffer because men like him were never held accountable. His death should not be seen as closure, but as a stark warning. Unless Sri Lanka reforms its institutions and brings powerful criminals to justice, others will live and die the same way, their crimes buried with them.

The victims of the Rajapaksa-era abuses in particular and countless others deserve better than the peace of the grave for perpetrators. They deserve justice in the courts, in life, not just a footnote in obituaries.

Lohan Ratwatte’s legacy should therefore serve as a call to action. We cannot continue to let goons, crooks, and murderers in high office live out their days untouched by the law.