When justice becomes a tool for criminal protection and power is no longer grounded in legitimacy, the question isn’t who governs the country, but who owns it?
The fallout from the Anuradhapura Prison scandal has exposed a deeper national crisis. What appeared at first to be an isolated case of procedural failure has revealed something far more alarming: the systemic decay of Sri Lanka’s rule of law.
Despite the gravity of the allegations, the President’s response has been limited to routine investigations and bureaucratic delegation. This indifference raises troubling questions. If the Commander-in-Chief won’t root out this abuse of authority, then the foundations of Sri Lanka’s constitutional governance are at risk of collapse.
This isn’t just about one prison. The scandal is a microcosm of a wider erosion of democratic norms. When prisons, meant to uphold justice, instead become stages for engineered escapes, the public’s trust is shattered. Lawlessness becomes the new order, and power is maintained not through legitimacy, but through secrecy, manipulation, and shadowy alliances.
The public deserves to be outraged. But anger must lead to reform. The investigation must extend far beyond the individuals involved. We must probe the structures that allowed this to happen: the broken pardon process, the lack of prison accountability, and the political interference in justice.
This case must spark a broader national reckoning: Who controls the controllers? If those entrusted with justice can abuse clemency to free criminals, then the entire system is hostage to elite interests. Sri Lanka cannot be a nation governed by privilege over principle.
Reform won’t come from rhetoric but through action. Transparency. Independent trials. Structural reform. The presidential pardon must be protected as a sacred constitutional mechanism, not hijacked for political favors or bureaucratic corruption.
Until such changes are made, the shadow of illegitimate authority will continue to loom over the country.
The real shock isn’t just that one or two inmates were freed. It’s that dozens of prisoners, including those convicted of rape, fraud, and organized crime, were released using forged presidential documents. And it wasn’t an accident. This was no clerical error.
It was a conspiracy.
CID investigations have uncovered a clandestine syndicate embedded in the prison system, a group manipulating documents, exploiting presidential authority, and orchestrating illegal releases under the guise of official pardons. The President’s name was used on forged pardons. And those responsible were the very people tasked with protecting justice: prison officials, ministry bureaucrats, and law enforcement.
This is not mere failure of governance. This is governance as a mechanism for elite criminality. The prison system, once a symbol of state justice, has been turned into a gateway for corruption. A constitutional safeguard the pardon has been weaponized to serve the powerful.
It would be convenient to blame one rogue official. But CID findings suggest a deeply rooted network operating under bureaucratic protection and political cover. The system has been hijacked.
This network doesn’t just threaten law and order. It undermines sovereignty itself.
The nation must now ask: Are the gates of justice truly guarded by law or by those who profit from undermining it?
If this moment passes without deep structural reform, the consequences will be grave. Sovereignty, justice, and public trust will continue to erode. And the citizens of Sri Lanka will be left to wonder, not who leads the country, but who has already claimed ownership of it.
