Sri Lanka stands at a defining crossroads. The question of accountability for the Rajapaksa family is no longer simply a matter of legal procedure or political convenience — it is a fundamental test of whether the island nation can build a functioning democracy rooted in the rule of law. After years of unchecked power, alleged corruption, and governance failures that pushed Sri Lanka to the brink of economic collapse, the cases against the Rajapaksas cannot be allowed to gather dust for another decade. The cost of delay is not merely procedural. It is civilizational.
A Culture of Impunity Decades in the Making
Sri Lanka's political culture has long tolerated the abuse of executive power. Since the introduction of the Executive Presidency by the late President J. R. Jayewardene in 1978, successive leaders have exploited the concentration of authority that the system enables. However, it was under the Rajapaksas that impunity was not merely tolerated — it was institutionalized and weaponized as a deliberate governing strategy.
Between 2005 and 2015, and again between 2019 and 2022, the Rajapaksa family consolidated political, economic, and military power in ways that Sri Lanka had never witnessed before. Key ministries were controlled by family members. State resources were allegedly funneled to benefit personal and political interests. Independent institutions were systematically weakened. Journalists, activists, and critics faced intimidation, enforced disappearances, and worse. The structures designed to hold power accountable were hollowed out from within.
The Economic Catastrophe as Evidence
The 2022 economic crisis did not emerge from nowhere. Sri Lanka's worst financial collapse since independence — marked by crippling fuel shortages, runaway inflation, foreign currency depletion, and mass public protests that ultimately drove President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power and out of the country — was the direct consequence of years of fiscal mismanagement, reckless borrowing, and policy decisions that prioritized political optics over economic reality.
Sweeping tax cuts introduced shortly after Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed the presidency in 2019 decimated government revenue. Organic farming mandates caused agricultural disruption. Billions in foreign reserves were spent defending an unsustainable exchange rate. These were not innocent mistakes. They were decisions made by a government that believed it would never face consequences. That belief was itself a product of decades of cultivated impunity. Accountability for these decisions is therefore not about political revenge — it is about establishing that governance has consequences and that citizens deserve answers.
Why the Cases Must Move Forward Now
There is a familiar pattern in Sri Lankan politics when it comes to prosecuting powerful figures. Cases are filed with great fanfare, investigations drag on for years, witnesses grow weary, evidence becomes harder to present, and political winds shift. Eventually, cases quietly collapse or are settled through informal political arrangements. The Rajapaksas themselves have already demonstrated a remarkable capacity for political resurrection. Mahinda Rajapaksa, despite the popular uprising of 2022, remains an active political figure. The family's networks remain largely intact.
Every passing year without accountability makes prosecution harder. Witnesses age or disappear. Documents are lost or destroyed. Institutional memory fades. Political pressure to "move on" and prioritize economic recovery over justice grows louder. International attention, which can serve as a critical pressure mechanism, inevitably shifts to newer crises elsewhere in the world. The window for meaningful accountability is not permanently open. It is closing.
The Democratic Stakes
Accountability for the Rajapaksas is not simply about punishing individuals for past wrongs. It is about sending an unambiguous message to every future Sri Lankan leader: power has limits, and those who abuse it will face legal consequences regardless of their political connections or family name. Without that message being credibly delivered, the cycle will repeat. Another strongman will emerge. Another family will consolidate power. Another generation of Sri Lankans will pay the price.
The international community, including multilateral lenders supporting Sri Lanka's economic recovery, has an interest in this outcome as well. Sustainable reform requires institutional integrity. Institutional integrity requires accountability. These are not separate conversations — they are the same conversation.
Justice Delayed Is Democracy Denied
Sri Lanka's judiciary, its investigative institutions, and its civil society have an opportunity — and an obligation — to demonstrate that the events of 2022 represented a genuine turning point rather than a temporary disruption in business as usual. The Rajapaksa cases are a test not just of legal systems but of national character and democratic resolve.
The people who stood in fuel queues, who protested in the rain, who stormed the presidential residence in an act of desperate civic fury — they deserve to see justice pursued with genuine seriousness and urgency. Sri Lanka cannot afford to wait another decade. The cost of continued impunity is a democracy that exists only on paper, and a future that remains permanently mortgaged to the ambitions of the powerful.