Yes, these glimpses of compassion, kindness and empathy, are most welcome from the government representatives. At least let us remind our selves that a large portion of our brothers & sisters in the IDP camps are, refugees and suspects at the same time. We need to change this, soon.

Thats great of him. But the govt will make sure the next CJ will be crook.

It is unfortunate that Sri Lanka will be losing the judgment and wisdom of this great personality. A devout and staunch Buddhist he has been able to apply the teachings of the Enlightened One in the dispensation of Justice to the ordinary and common people. He is a shining example to all Sri Lankans as to how we can overcome our differences and live together under the rule of Law and Equal Rights as enjoined in our Constitution. I wish him all the best and may he achieve his higher ambitions of life and religion in his retirement.

That a senior judicial officer can speak like this is truly encouraging. It is also worth remembering that the judiciary and legal profession in Pakistan was and is an important bulwark agaist the military regime. If they can play a similar role in Lanka, then, we can say that at least one ark of government has survived the degredation of the legislature and the execute that has remained under the current regime.

There was much he could have done to right Tamil wrongs when he held powerful office. But he sadly chose to remain silent presumably with intent not to get
to the wrong side of the Buddhist Sinhala supremacist Govt. He made the judiciary
to be a living organism to help the people. The greatest injury done in recent years was the de-merger of the NEP that went into the heart of the Indo-Lankan Peace Accord and the 13th Amendment. It also hardened India's attitude towards us and made them lose faith in us. All these cannot be set right by platitudes when out of office. Mr Sarath Silva is a learned and strong man. He could have done much to repair the wrongs of the past and unite the two people.

Ilaya Seran Senguttuvan

Sri Lankan President, Minister for Human Rights,"green card" holders in Sri Lanka and all politicians those who don't understand what is Human Rights, try to understand as to what the Learned Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, wrote in this blog!
According to so called 'Karma" preached in our Religion, you will one day have to face the court of Justice, even if you deceit you and your “sanga” by giving “Dana”, donate jewels and money to the Thirupathi temple, or whatsoever, won’t help you at all!
The present state of mess in this country is the nasty seed of the chauvinistic masters, who govern in the past, its consequences.......... !
Every racist in the country are architect behind the destruction and misery experiencing today.
“You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”
Performing “Sill” at pannsala and killing and innocents at detention camps will not give you “Nirvana” in heaven!
Load Buddha thrown his kingdom for the betterment of the mankind! You Buddha followers bury his preaching and slaughtering the innocent masses in concentration camps!
"Buddhan saranan gachchami”

At least he spoke his mind. Sri Lanka needs leaders like CJ Sarath Nanda Silva, who will speak the truth even against the popular tide. The independence of the judiciary is also in question after his anticipated departure.

Ilaya

Your points are good ones - and I stand to be corrected on the role of the CJ while in office. I cannot say I know much about it. However, even if after retirement he does the right thing, this cannot be a bad thing?

Even the noble Maha Nayakes had no word on the IDP sufferings, but the learned Judge is making way for
a timely good Political start in the future!

An important WITNESS perhaps!

Good start (perhaps) ... but let's also hope that this is not a gimmick to fool the world about free speech etc.
Let's see what fruits will appear out of this.

Amrit's (above) comparison with Pakistan is not valid.
In Pakistan the people fully backed the lawyers and the judicary and that is why the military had to back down.
However, in SriLanka the Sinhalese people for the most part (whether in ignorance or otherwise) back the Mahinda regime and the miltary and see anyone opposing them as traitors!

Ref:de-merger of the NEP
Ilaya Seran
Yes agreed , He said in his judgement He himself belive demrgring is probe solution for Tamil.
Is he is judge or Politition?
Small People only talk when theY leave the office, if you can remember our lady Hon CPK.

The biggest question is whether the next Chief Justice will be as open ( & honest0as Sarath N Silva. or is he going to be towing the line of the ( not so great) Autocratic Mahinda Regime, especially since he will have a long way to go to complete his term.

“..We are doing a great wrong to these people" says CJ Sarath Nanda Silva..”

Actually the current governmental leadership is doing this criminal act. Don't say we (Sinhalese/ Sri Lankans). Why are you taking responsibility for the criminal activity of the current government?

All moderate Sinhalese should stay away from supporting these criminal minds.

Once the leader and his foreign advisers realize that they wouldn’t have the support of the majority people then the advisers would be forced to leave the country. By supporting these criminals, the moderates are indirectly letting these criminals to do what ever they want. VP did this to Tamils and now MR is doing this to Sinhalese.

CJ cannot say much more, or he will take a white van ride. CJ loves his job, therefore he will just go with the flow. It takes a very very strong person to oppose the Establishment and be willing to face the consequences (including white van ride). Maybe CJ is good at his job; but he is lacking the personality of aforementioned person.

Amrit and Andy Lingam:

Shorn off your power, office and influence you are no different to a vegetable in terms of being able to influence the direction of State policy. We saw that in the mighty JRJ - and more recently in CBK. Remember when she went to Mani Shankar Iyer's book launch in Delhi a few months ago, she shed tears on the plight of the Tamils and openly agreed they have been wronged. One would think she had nothing to do at all in governance in the country. Hypocracy is an essential part of all politicians - less in some and more in others. But let me say this - Ex-CJ Sarath Silva has a lot in him that can do a world of good to
Sri Lanka's political quicksand. In these days when people dream of a benevolent
dictator now that most systems have failed and will continue to do so with actual political power in the hands of a few ill-educated Buddhist priests and their cohorts, he might well be our man to take us to that light all of us seek in that darkness that has been our lot in the past 30 years. I know personally for certain he is no communalist and neither is he anti-Tamil or anti-Indian.

Ilaya Seran Senguttuvan

Chief Justice Sarath de Silva demerged the Northern and the Eastern Provinces in 2007 under a landmark ruling. This undid the central provision of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in 1987 to meet Tamil aspirations in Sri Lanka. The ruling gave a fillip to the hardline Rajapakse administration that proceed to merrily roll back devolution. Perhaps in guilt, Justice de Silva made these statements last month on the refugee plight to 'undo' his earlier damage to the Tamil people in the constitutional realm.

My Lord,
Watch out! You only have three more weeks, go with grace. Don't end up in white van cushion, you are not immune. May God Bless You, My Lord!
You take care!

I heard rumors that Sarath N Silva planning for next presidentaial candidate. He can be alli with JVP as they need someone and SNS also agreed JVP policies, I hope. Also UNP and Mangala Samaraweera also can alli with him as a common man. Wait and see.

But his words here are very valuable as it says truth - from a top man in SL Sinhalease.

MR cannot be defered simply for years, I think. But in SL politics anything can happen. A single bullet can even decide many things.

N2 You are right. The popular backing given to the judiciary and legal profession by the people of Pakistan is not behind the CJ. However, my hope is that once the authoritarian state created by the Rajapakse brothers turns on Sinhala dissent with its full ferocity, other people like the CJ could come to the fore. It is ironinic that despite the bad press Pakistan gets, the role its judiciary and legal profession in standing up to the military is something that is missing in Lanka.

Initially Sarath Silva at the Supreme Court was not known as even-handed. His involvement in ruling for the demerger, in some fundamental rights cases submitted by Tamil people, etc., (I don't recall if he was at the court when the Bindunuwewa case was brought up) he was not seen as impartial. Even the UTHR said at that time that the country was being ruled by a clique close to the Rajapaksas and that included Mr. Silva.

Then for some reason, he changed at some point. Mr. Silva was no longer seen as part of the Rajapksa clique and was seen to make some rulings that supported Human Rights of the minorities. e.g., in the arbitray eviction of Tamils from the North-East living in Colombo. Whether this was caused by a genuine change of heart or out of some sort of personal vendetta against the Rajapaksa clique is not clear. There was the ruling on keeping petrol prices low--though populist, this was not strictly speaking his proper role. While he could be so populist in that case, his ruling in the Tissainayagam case against his release left much to be desired.

Anyway, in this instance, we should thank him for telling the truth at a time when the GoSL is conducting guided tours to deceive Ban-ki-Moon and Heath Shuler into saying good things about the way IDPs are treated.

Reference to de-merger of north/east - Yes in the judgement he alowed the de-merger, but he has given suggestions how the provinces can be re-merged. It is the government which is not exploring the ways to re-merge them. He had also delivered judgement in resettling of people in the high security zone in Jaffna, but again the government is not carrying it out.
Even if his action has come late, we have to welcome it.

Atleast at tail end of his carrier he had the courage to speak out. Bravo.His words,I think are truly out of concern, he must have felt heart broken after seeing the camps. Even more interesting is his comments about how "these people are beyond the reach of law of the land".If this is the case can some well intentioned public interest group can bring a herbias coupes motion wouldn't it?(Pardon my spelling).Then again independant judiciary&free press these are all western concepts we want home grown solutions,Mahinda chindhana."Don't preach us what to do these people are evil even they breath free air it might contaminate the SL atmosphere so they have to go to gas chamber".These people are capable of mass self emolition.Did I inadvertantly give some ideas to MR and co? Shame on me.

Through the microscope & the European history, one will be able to observe the small print.
Catholic Church amd the clergy in the north are behind the ltte to make them a powerful entity in the region.

It is no secret, European history will clearly indicate that the catholic church is very comfortable growing with the seat of power & thats exactly what they are indulged in Sri Lanka to gain the power in the region by supporting them and later using them.

CJ with his soothing rhetorics whilst carving a future for himself (he is a man who crave for power/position or recognistion)is providing the chief perpetrator the catholic church a platform for the second launch of the tigers through propaganda.

Where better evidence against the catholic Church than the incident today reminded as the BLACK friday.
What the Catholic Church did to the Knight templars bears testimony.

There is nothing called COLD. it is the absence of heat.
Likewise there is nothing called the defeat of terrorism but the absence of the catholic church.

Now he is a retired Judge but when he was on the bench je never give any advice to S.L gov to solve the ethnic problem