The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former Minister of Disaster Management A.H.M. Fowzie to pay Rs. 6.6 million to the Consolidated Fund and to publish a public apology in newspapers — accompanied by a photograph of the vehicle he misused.
The court held that Fowzie violated the fundamental right to equality guaranteed by Article 12(1) of the Constitution by using a government vehicle for his personal benefit, the Daily Mirror reported.
What he has to pay
Delivering the judgment, Justice Janak de Silva ordered two separate payments:
- Rs. 1,664,334.93 within one month, as compensation for expenses incurred in connection with the vehicle.
- Rs. 5 million within two months, as exemplary compensation in respect of acts of bribery and corruption established before the court.
Both sums go to the Consolidated Fund, bringing the total to just under Rs. 6.67 million.
The determination was made by a three-judge bench of Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and Justices Janak de Silva and Arjuna Obeyesekere, on a fundamental rights petition filed by Chandra Jayaratne, a former chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
The vehicle
The vehicle was a luxury car provided by the government of the Netherlands for disaster management work in Sri Lanka, which Fowzie instead used personally, Hiru News reported. The court found he had acted in his capacity as a public representative, and so had breached the public trust doctrine as well as the right to equality.
Not the first penalty
Fowzie had already been sentenced by the Colombo High Court over the same vehicle: two years’ rigorous imprisonment, suspended for ten years, plus a Rs. 400,000 fine, after he pleaded guilty. Jayaratne filed the fundamental rights petition afterwards, arguing that the misuse of public funds and the breach of public trust had not been answered by that sentence.
Two versions of the apology order
The outlets describe the apology requirement differently. The Daily Mirror reports the court directed Fowzie to publish the apology in three newspapers, with a photograph of the vehicle included. Hiru reports it as half-page apologies in all three languages in national newspapers, again with a photograph of the vehicle.
Both agree on the photograph and on the fact of a published apology; the number of newspapers versus the number of languages is not settled between them. The written judgment would resolve it.
Hiru’s report also puts the compensation at “Rs. 6 million” in its headline while itemising Rs. 1.6 million and Rs. 5 million in its own text — figures that sum to the Rs. 6.6 million the Daily Mirror reports. The itemised figures are the ones both outlets agree on.
