Minister K.D. Lal Kantha said on Friday that neither President Anura Kumara Dissanayake nor the government would decide to release Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera in violation of the government’s mandate — the clearest refusal any member of the administration has given since monks marched on Colombo demanding the jailed monk’s freedom.

Speaking to reporters, the minister said the government’s mandate was to uphold the rule of law and ensure equality before the law, and that the President would not take any decision contrary to it, the Daily Mirror reported. The demand by a group of Buddhist monks for a presidential pardon could not be fulfilled, he said, because granting one would breach that mandate.

“We cannot go against the mandate under any circumstances. I am certain that the President will not take a decision contrary to the mandate. One should make demands that can be fulfilled.”

The timing

The statement came the same day the campaign stood down its occupation. Monks who had camped outside the Presidential Secretariat overnight dismantled their shelters and left the site after Colombo Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena barred 54 people from the premises on Friday morning.

By Friday afternoon the group had moved to talks at the Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs, Tamil Guardian reported. So the government’s firmest public “no” was issued while the campaign was sitting down with a ministry — not while it was on the street.

Lal Kantha answered a bigger demand than the one being made

This is the part no filing draws out. Lal Kantha ruled out a pardon. According to Tamil Guardian, what the monks put to the Secretary to the President, Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, on Thursday evening was narrower: they asked for what they described as a technical flaw in the 2019 presidential pardon to be rectified, and for a timeline. He told them a definitive answer could not be given.

Those are not the same request. The 2019 pardon, granted by then-President Maithripala Sirisena, was not struck down on a technicality. The Supreme Court declared it arbitrary and invalid in law on 10 September, on petitions by the Centre for Policy Alternatives and Sandhya Ekneligoda. Delivering that judgment, Justice Janak De Silva held that the Presidential Secretariat held no record of why the pardon had been granted, and that a pardon is not a private act of grace but a constitutional power that must be exercised in the public interest, with reasons.

A defect of that kind cannot be cured by re-issuing the same document more carefully. Repairing it would mean making a fresh decision on the merits — which is the pardon Lal Kantha has just ruled out.

Where the government has already drawn the line

The administration’s position has been consistent in form if not in volume. On 8 October the President told the Maha Sangha he would not order officials to bypass existing prison law, saying he did not wish to issue an order to the effect that “although the law exists in this form, do this instead,” and that unsuitable laws should be amended through the legislative process instead.

That approach delivered the campaign its original demand. Prison attire rules were changed, and an interim order amending Departmental Order 550 now allows monks to wear robes when leaving prison premises. Release was never conceded, and on Friday a cabinet minister said plainly that it will not be.

Chief of Presidential Staff Prabath Chandrakeerthi had told the monks on Thursday that the President had agreed to let the government proceed in line with legal procedures and the Constitution, but could not give a timeframe. Lal Kantha’s remarks put a limit on where those procedures can end.

Not reported

The Daily Mirror does not say where or at what event the minister spoke, whether he was answering a question or making a prepared statement, or whether he was speaking for the cabinet. Neither source reports any response from the Maha Sangha, Ven. Ulapane Sumangala Thera or the campaign to his remarks, and neither says what was discussed at the Buddhasasana Ministry talks or whether any further meeting was agreed. No outlet reports whether the government distinguishes between a fresh pardon, a remission, and the “rectification” the monks asked for.

Sources: Daily Mirror, Tamil Guardian.