Former Ravaya Editor Victor Ivan is the winner of the National Integrity Award (NIA) 2015 awarded by Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL). He received the award from Maithreepala Sirisena the President of Democratic Socialists Republic of Sri Lanka at function held in Independence Square on 09th December.
The NIA is annually presented as part of TISL’s effort to curb bribery and corruption, and promote integrity and good governance. The award is given to individuals and organisations as recognition of their silent service in anti-corruption activities and their role in supporting good governance and accountability.
This is the twelfth consecutive year that the NIA presentation is held. Every year the presentation is held to coincide with the UN Anti-Corruption Day which falls on 9 December.
Victor Ivan is an editor with a sharp understanding of the country’s problems and their origins. He also extended his grasp to other fields of interest and concern. Democratic rights, national unity, constitutional reform, eradication of corruption and judicial independence were among other themes that entered his ken and vision.
He played a critical role in the campaign to establish and empower independent commissions through the seventeenth amendment to the constitution. He mobilized various civil society organizations towards this end. His selfless efforts over the years have borne fruit in the constitutional amendments that have been passed.
Maajuwaana Kankanammge Victor Ivan – Former Editor of the ‘Ravaya’
In June 1986, during an era deep conflict in Sri Lanka, Victor Ivan launched the Ravaya monthly magazine.
His goal and vision was to create a space for intelligent dialogue in a society that was suffering from pressures exerted by two armed insurrections in the North and the South of the country, an intervention from a foreign army and serious bloodshed and human rights violations exerted by the State.
He provided a vibrant platform not for one point of view but for a wide range of views and opinions through which he fostered the spread of new ideas through discussion and dialogue. He was a powerful agent of consensus creation.
Four years after its inception, Ravaya Magazine flowered in to a weekend tabloid newspaper and five years later it became a national newspaper. As chief editor of the Ravaya since its humble beginnings, Victor Ivan persisted in creating dialogue with his pen for 28 years without falling prey to either side of the divide –a tremendous impartial achievement of courage and grit.
Victor Ivan is an editor with a sharp understanding of the country’s problems and their origins. He also extended his grasp to other fields of interest and concern. Democratic rights, national unity, constitutional reform, eradication of corruption and judicial independence were among other themes that entered his ken and vision.
There is perhaps no other Sri Lankan community activist who has fought so relentlessly, faced so many challenges and suffered as much as Victor Ivan for the independence of the judiciary and the eradication of corruption.
More than minor corrupt practices of lesser people, he exposed the mega corruption of the powerful for which he had to face endless court cases and threats to his life over long periods of time. He proved all his court cases but the powerful wrong-doers escaped scot free.
Victor Ivan is a journalist who suffered immensely under the laws of defamation against the media for blowing the whistle against corruption among politicians and the high and mighty bureaucracy. He was engaged in a determined campaign to remove the law of defamation from the statute book, and so it was.
He played a critical role in the campaign to establish and empower independent commissions through the seventeenth amendment to the constitution. He mobilized various civil society organizations towards this end. His selfless efforts over the years have borne fruit in the constitutional amendments that have been passed.
He also fought hard for an independent bribery commission and for the declaration of assets by public officials if corruption was to be rooted out.
It was the Ravaya editor who demonstrated that the judiciary was not above media comment in the interests of the general public.
The campaign to seek justice for a girl by the name of Sandarekha raped by a retired police inspector and who was freed by the Attorney General is a case in point.
Another is the exposure of the malpractice of a magistrate who had freed a popular film star from the charge of rape of an underage girl. In both these cases the Ravaya editor’s stand was vindicated.
The Ravaya campaign against a former Chief Justice is the most historic in the annals of Sri Lankan journalism.
Ravaya published the photograph upside down of Sarath N. Silva, who was an accused in two court cases, taking oaths as Chief Justice before the President and blackened the front page of the paper as a mark of protest against the appointment. It symbolized the strength of a news medium and the intrepid courage of an editor.
He submitted a petition in the Supreme Court protesting the appointment of the Chief Justice. This petition was examined by a bench of judges appointed by the Chief Justice himself and the case was dismissed. Ivan then appealed to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. This was the first attempt to seek justice beyond the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. This move was considered a meaningful step forward in widening the scope of human rights in the country.
Consequently the Human Rights Court in Geneva decided in favour of Victor Ivan but the Sri Lankan government has not to date implemented the Geneva decree.
Ivan went beyond the traditional confines of a newspaper and the powerful role he played in three regime changes is no secret. But he never stepped beyond his legitimate editorial role.
As an editor and owner of a newspaper he set an example of editorial independence for his staff, undoubtedly unparalleled even internationally.
Over twenty-eight long years, Victor Ivan has bequeathed priceless values not only to the Sri Lankan journalistic ethos but also to Sri Lankan society at large. During his challenging role as a newspaper editor, he also wrote a number of valuable books of literary merit. This is testimony to his voice of dissent and his intellectual acumen.
The example he set while fighting for the common good for a successful personal career is truly outstanding.
He also set a rare example by relinquishing after twenty-eight years and of his own free will his role in the Ravaya newspaper that had become synonymous in the public consciousness with the name ‘Victor Ivan’ and his ownership of the institution he built by himself.
Victor Ivan widened the traditional boundaries in many fields and was often a controversial character. By receiving the Transparency Award today, there is no doubt he also enriches and widens the definition of “transparency”.