Chief Opposition whip MP Lakshman Kiriella, earlier this week, made a request in Parliament to provide a scheme for members of parliament with some legislative experience to enter into Sri Lanka Law College and other universities of their choice to pursue their higher studies, without sitting for entrance exams. He also reminded the house of a scheme that had been in place during 70’s which had allowed exam-free entrance to Sri Lanka Law College. But this scheme hadn't lasted long and must have been scrapped prematurely for some very good reason. The current premier Mahinda Rajapaksa and late Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle were among the few young MPs who made use of this scheme to enter Law College to become lawyers. In his request MP Kiriella suggested making exam-free entrance to Law College as a parliamentary privilege. I believe the honorable MP made this suggestion without really knowing the purpose of the concept of parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity granted to legislators by exempting them from the ordinary law in order to allow them to perform their legislative tasks without interference of any outside authority or even the judiciary (i.e privilege of freedom of speech). Equating parliamentary privilege to offering a bounty of perks on MPs would be a misconception and abuse of the concept of parliamentary privilege.
The problem with uneducated politicians getting elected has been in the public discourse for so long, particularly among the educated elite before the issue became more mainstream. And now even the under-educated and politically ignorant masses have begun to lash at the way uneducated and incompetent parliamentarians conduct themselves in parliament and their approach in handling deepening economic issues the country is faced with at the moment. Interestingly, many members in the house, like MP Kiriella did in his speech, have admitted to the lack of education among their political peers.
Our politicians are terribly uneducated. Disappointingly, most parliamentarians do not possess minimum basic qualifications to take up even a clerk job. If you check the profiles of MPs in the Parliament website, you'll notice a majority of members are self-made businessmen and landowners. And no one even knows how they earned those designations and what businesses they do. Close to about a half of MPs out of 225 have not obtained G.C.E O/L qualification. Many of them also do not properly participate in parliamentary sessions. On top of all, they do not have a moral compass. In a parliament characterized by sheer thuggery and third-grade trade of filth, etiquette of our parliamentarians are completely out of question. In these circumstances offering them exam-free entrance to a noble profession like our legal profession is an utterly idiotic proposal. It is discriminatory, and in fact a regressive move to a nation already plagued by many chaos.
Historically, there has been a clear lawyer-legislator dominance in politics. This ubiquity of lawyer-politicians is an undeniable fact, given the strong connection between law and politics, particularly with regard to law-making process. It encourages one to think critically, reason and challenge policies, and overall makes them well suited to take up legislative tasks. Learning law has a substantial impact on one’s political participation, behavior and political attitudes. A legal practitioner is able to read, absorb, reason and challenge policies and bills even when they are hundreds of pages long, better than a non-lawyer politician. MP Kiriella, being himself a lawyer was right about having more parliamentarians learnt in law. Lawyers indeed make good legislators. But his request to revive an outdated scheme of 70's is discriminatory and not desirable in a more open and equal society in the twenty-first century. Law College is no longer the privilege of elite society as it was in 70's. Now anybody with two Cs and one S at the A/L examination and with a C for his/her mother language is eligible to take up the Law Entrance exam and enter Law College. .
Globally, lawyer-politicians tend to dominate party leadership positions compared to thier non-lawyer counterparts. If you look at prominent political leaders who made history globally; Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, and more contemporary examples like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, there’s one thing in common among these celebrated politicians: they are all learnt in law. They are all lawyers who ran for public office and marked their names. Most importantly, they all went to law school before going into politics. But we are not seeing this trend in Sri Lankan politics. But it would be a mistake not to mention a few names of Sri Lankan lawyer-politicians. Former primier Ranil Wickramasinghe, MP Wijedasa Rajapaksa, MP Ajith P Perera and current Justice Minister Ali Sabri, Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris are a few Sri Lankan lawyer-politicians who went to law school before they ran for office. But only uncle JR Jayewardene and his nephew Ranil Wickramasinghe were able to contest at the elections as party chair. And unfortunately many Sri Lankan lawyer-politicians today remain mere backbenchers for most of their political careers and do not find their way into party leadership positions. Maybe dynasty, nepotism, money and thuggery are all what is needed to climb the political ladder in this corruption-riddled nation.
Legal profession is historically viewed as a noble profession committed to public service. And for the same reason legal professionals are seen as highly desirable candidates to run for public office. Only persons of good repute, and of competent knowledge and ability are entitled to be enrolled as lawyers. But almost all of the members in the current house except a vey few, have records of notorious criminal behavior against them, ranging from allegations of murder, gang rape to highway robbery. Many have had against their names multiple allegations of financial corruption. But to our dismay, none of them have ever been found guilty by our courts. These corrupt politicians in clearing their names off the records had a lot to do with undermining the rule of law in this country and weakening the independence of our judiciary. These uncouth politicians do not value education, and to them education is something on a paper which can be easily bought for money. To many politicians, politics is not about governance, but all about washing others' dirty underwear. Today a lot of low key politicians as well as political higher-ups are in the habit of swapping their hard earned money for fake degrees and bogus professional qualifications. So, should we let a these highly illiterate and corrupt individuals ,apparently with no passion for public service, to earn professional qualifications at the cost of our already plummeting public coffers?
Politicians are lawmakers, and studying law is the gateway into a political career. But not all lawyer- politicians make good leaders. And in a democracy, definitely, to be a politician one doesn't need to study law for it. Nor is it imperative to have a college/university experience to be an effective lawmaker. Because education alone doesn't make one a good legislator. But of course a little bit of legal background would certainly help them do their law making job better. One needs to have both head and heart be a good legislator. All it takes to be a successful lawmaker is to be an intelligent person with a fair amount of knowledge about governance of a state and a willingness to make a genuine commitment to public service. Merely winning elections and holding onto power through unscrupulous means is not the level of intelligence required of a lawmaker. So before anyone decides to make a career in politics, one must learn and earn qualifications necessary for the job. It could be law or any other field of study, of their skill and choice. For those late bloomers out there, learning law after getting elected still remains a choice. But earning that qualification shouldn't come easier for them at the expense of tax payers, they must earn it just as any other citizen would. Educational qualifications shouldn't be handed to anybody on a silver platter merely because he is a parliamentarian. We vote up and send our representatives to parliament to make laws, not to learn law. If they want to learn law, they have to do the hard work for it just as anybody else would do. Education is a right everyone is entitled to, and it shouldn't be a privilege only to a few.
The problem of uneducated and unprincipled politicians getting elected to legislature cannot be overcome by giving them perks and privileges to further their higher studies. The root cause of this problem lies in the fact that much of our populous still remains politically and legally illiterate, despite our high literacy rates, and they continue to elect uneducated thugs into parliament. An uneducated public is a politician's paradise. As long as the public remains largely under-educated, uneducated politicians will somehow find their way into parliament. Politicians are generally eager to widen gaps between the ruling class and the general public. Thus, the request made by MP Kiriella to allow parliamentarians with legislative experience to enter universities exempting them from the eligible criteria to enter Law College is one such discriminatory move which would widen the gap and discourage hard-working professionals. This country is not in short of politically ambitious legal professionals. If the current parliamentarians are not sufficiently learnt in law and are unfit to do their job, there is a cascade of politically ambitious newly minted lawyers who are willing to put a stake in politics.
As we said earlier, electing educated politicians are possible only if the electorate is sufficiently educated. Offering law as a subject in our school curriculum would be a first start to create a politically empowered public with legal literacy. A public with sufficient legal education has more integrity and respect for the law, and is mostly law-abiding. However, as a society we are highly corrupt from bottom-to-top. We all are taught by our system to compromise our integrity for mere survival. And we are not encouraged to question questionable behavior and corrupt practices of politicians and public officals. As a result we have become an electorate unable to filter fact from fiction and thus often succumb to popular politics played around the corner of elections. This is why, every five years we end up throwing third grade corrupt politicians from the same dynasties into parliament. So, to overcome this vicious cycle, all what is needed is a comprehensive education reform in our schools system and higher education institutes with a special focus on legal education, and a social movement to change the political attitudes of our people. Educating general public can solve many other problems associated with governance. Simply educate the undereducated masses first, not politicians. It is the most powerful investment for the endurable future. If we are to change our status quo in politics, educating masses is the only key. Other than voting up an educated politicians into our legislature, an educated public will certainly yield an abundance of other political, economic and social benefits for years to come.
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