(editorial)

The Government is to reactivate the judicial system in the North which had been lying largely dysfunctional during three decades of conflict. This while restoring to the full the country’s established judicial system in those areas will also serve to speed up the normalization process.


According to news reports, the Justice and Law Reforms Ministry has undertaken to revive the judicial process in the Northern Province. Justice and Law Reform Minister Milinda Moragoda and his officials had already visited the Appeal and District Court premises in Jaffna last week and met judges, officials and lawyers in the Jaffna peninsula.


It was also reported that the Minister and his officials have undertaken special assignments to assess the social background and to obtain firsthand information on the infrastructure facilities available in the areas in question.


The Minister should be commended for taking steps to establish the rule of law in the areas where the writ of the Government did not run not very long ago. The measures constitute an important factor in the ongoing integration process.


This is indeed a most welcome move and a timely exercise -inducting the Northerner into the country’s law and order system after a 30-year hiatus. True, there were courts operating in pockets of the peninsula but it is doubtful if the judicial officers had the independence and courage to administer justice according to their conscience and the laid down procedure.


This is because although these areas may have been Government held territory, there was always the overarching presence of the LTTE to contend with. It was a case of the sword of Damocles hanging over the judges whose judicial pronouncements may have not been to the liking of the LTTE. There is no doubt that the judges themselves would have been meted out summary justice similar to the Kangaroo Court variety operated by the LTTE in its territory.


What about the population per se? These hapless souls had no recourse to the established law to obtain redress to their grievances. On the contrary, they were subjected to arbitrary edicts of the LTTE where they were forced to fork out money by way illegal taxes and other levies. An ‘offender’ was meted out summary justice with no recourse to an appeal process.


They had to watch helplessly as their land, property and other chattels were appropriated at the whims and pleasure of their so called liberators. There was no one to turn to when their children were abducted to be used as cannon fodder. It was the jungle law that prevailed. Hence it will be a whole new experience to these hapless souls to be governed under civilized codes and established legal practices.


No doubt the Minister and his officials will have a gigantic task on their hands to turn these people into law abiding citizens in the context that they would not be familiar with the basic rudiments of the established law as is known to the rest of the country. It will have to be a learning process.


True, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Therefore it goes without saying that these people will necessarily have to be put through careful and systematic induction to our formal legal system allowing them to feel their way gradually. They should not be made victims of the new cannons all of a sudden.


Special programs should be charted under expert guidance to make these people to come out of the vacuum of lawlessness which was their lot and be part and parcel of the law abiding civilized society.


The report states that there were no law courts operating in the Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts. A new High Court is to be set up in Kilinochchi shortly once the recommendations of the judicial de-limitation commissions are implemented early next year. It is these two districts that was in the epicentre of the conflict and the Minister would do well to concentrate all resources towards the emancipation of these people from the blackhole of lawlessness and to enlightened beings, guided by the established legal system, in their day to day affairs and transactions.


He should enter this process gradually. First there is a lot to be done in terms of rebuilding the damaged infrastructure. Destroyed Court houses have to be rebuilt and all facilities enjoyed by judicial officers should be made available to their Northern counterparts such as judges’ quarters, vehicles and housing. The Minister will have to practically build from the rubble.


He will have to produce the legal practitioners, and judicial officers. Above all, he has to create the necessary congenial environment for a vibrant judiciary to function. There is a mountainous legal backlog waiting to be cleared in the North.