Who guards the guards?

The Opposition and the government have been clashing, in Parliament, for the past several days over what the former describes as the unconstitutional transfer of some of the vital powers of the National Police Commission (NPC) to IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya.

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The Opposition insists that the IGP has transferred dozens of Officers in Charge of police stations across the country, at the behest of the government, bypassing the NPC. The government has sought to counter the Opposition’s allegation, but its arguments do not sound compelling.

The Constitutional Council (CC) and _ the Independent Commissions, such as the NPC, were established to act as a countervailing force against the powerful executive presidency and help depoliticise the state service. But these institutions themselves have failed to be above partisan politics, and therefore Sri Lankans are today repeating the question Juvenal asked in the second century AD: Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes—'who guards the guards’?