02 April 2023
Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
SRI
LANKA’S HUMAN RIGHTS DAMAGED BY LAWYERS
The wise say ‘Live in the
present’. What does that mean to me? Living in the present reality, to my mind,
means – to live in truth in its the form of my current environment.
The above picture in the Sri
Lankan Human Rights Commission’ – published on 06 April 2019. It is a picture
that appears on the front page of the website, under ‘current activities. The note goes as follows:
‘The delegation of the UN Subcommittee
on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) visited the Human Rights Commission of
Sri Lanka on 04 April 2019. The delegation comprised of Mr Victor Zaharia,
(Head of Delegation), Mr. Staybhooshun Gupt Domah, Mr. Petros Michaelides, and
Ms. June Lopez. The SPT Delegation met with Dr. Deepika Udagama, Chairperson
and Commissioners Ms. Ramani Muttetuwegama and Ms. Ambika Satkunanathan and
discussed issues of mutual concern and interest.’
I met Dr Deepika
Udagama, then the Chairperson, through, Sri Lanka Reconciliation Forum, Sydney.
As per my current knowledge, the lady resigned from her ‘position of the
head of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka’ in August 2020.
Hence, to my mind, the Human Rights .Commission
of Sri Lanka, is misleading the people by showing the past as present.
The most basic human right is the right to live
as per one’s own truth and nothing but the truth. The right to as per the law is
NOT a human right. It is a requirement
of the State towards following in common pathway.
In Sri Lanka, there are big gaps between the written
law and belief of law-makers the laws they make. The controversial ‘Prevention
of Terrorism Act’ (PTA) is a good example of this. Alleged Human Rights groups who do not define their own truth / belief but use UN policies,
would damage the investments made by
those who are true to themselves but have been punished by courts, using the
law written by corrupt politicians. The stronger the desire for money, the shorter
the gap between cause and effect.
Last
week’s ‘Face the Nation’ program under the title ‘Debt restructuring &
reforms: What must Sri Lanka do?’ was about restructuring State Owned Enterprises.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) were
mentioned. In my response to the Auditor General on this, in 2003, I emphasized
that KPI’s were for owners and not for auditors. Ref Appendix.
The Face the
Nation group discussed also the need to separate Government from interfering
with Management of these organisations. The two policies contradict each other.
KPIs are internal indicators of Belief. They
are driven by feelings and NOT proof. One who requires proof is an outsider. Hence
the Doctrine of Separation of Powers is applied between the Judiciary and the
Executive Government. The latter is the maker and the former is the outsider
who measures the performance for external purposes. Courts need evidence but owners
are driven by indicators.
When these
State owned enterprises showed Economic losses they indicated losses in government
also. One who feels ownership in both would have picked up the early warning
signs of the National level collapse that followed. As per Wikipedia - News First or News 1st, is a Sri Lankan
news organization owned by the Capital Maharaja Organization Ltd.
To the extent they
are economically successful their Energies would influence Privately owned
Airlines. State owned Enterprises need to be managed by those who feel
ownership in Sri Lanka as well as the Service being provided. In the case of the
National Carrier the Service has to be of global standards in every aspect. If this is unrealistic, then we need to stop
importing global policies as if we are of global standards.
Appendix
Mr.
Sendt - the NSW Auditor General, wrote
on
‘Ms Param, I fully understand that
auditors are not to participate in the management of the entities they audit.
That is basic. What I said in my report is that external financial reports only
give a partial view of the performance of many public entities. Such entities
are not established to earn a profit or a return on assets, but to provide
services to the public. So to give a true and fair view of how well they are providing
services, they also produce non-financial performance indicators. If financial
reports are required to be audited – to give the public confidence in their
accuracy – then so too should the performance indicators. I fail to see how you
can state that this is participating in the management of the entity.
Bob
Sendt
NSW
Auditor General
My response to the above indicates the deep
wisdom I have in Audit and Compliance, largely based on my Sri Lankan training:
‘Thank you Mr. Sendt for the prompt response. Most progressive
organizations produce both – Financial and Non-Financial Performance
Indicators. They are both for MANAGEMENT
purposes and reflect the THINKING and WORK_IN_PROGRESS. If you use Performance
Indicators – then you are thinking with them. This is like the Executive
Government participating in the Judicial process. Your Non-Financial Reports
are based on the Legal records that these organizations are required to
maintain – such as the Recruitment and Employee Assessment records. Where there
is a big gap between Law and Practice – it requires YOUR staff to do the
additional work. Taking the Performance Indicators distracts you away from this
work. It is in breach of the Doctrine of Separation of Powers. These organizations must be allowed to
confidentially do the cooking and it’s up to your staff to do the spy work from
the finished product to the LAW and not to their dreams and goals. You are
seeking the short path because your staff are not trained to find out from the
client staff what is going on. Staff often ‘hide’ information from you because
you are third party. So they should. That way your staff would improve their
skills. Using client-staff’s work-in-progress deters your staff from thinking
through their own specialty = AUDIT on the basis of existing LAW. Then we would
become a uniform society instead of a diverse society challenging each other –
you within the existing law and the operational staff towards tomorrow’s laws.
Challenging leads to creativity – as you can see from me. Gandhi also said that
the night he was thrown out of the first class compartment of the South African
RAILWAYS was his most creative experience.
You need to get the client organization to
publish their non-financial reports that are mandatorily maintained. Public
service organizations primarily make goodwill. This can also be positive or
negative – profits or losses. They are collected together and are balanced with
the total costs through Common Funds. It will be useful for you to develop a
standard dollar value for these legal requirements so the People can SEE and
know the Truth. Your role is not to help them make a profit but to report
whether they are and how much. How about doing one on UNSW? Or State Rail?
Thank you again for responding. It has
helped deeply.
Regards,
Gaja ( effectively in custody)
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