Final submissions filed at SC on cases against PSC

By Dharisha Bastians

Yesterday was the deadline for written submissions to be made before the Supreme Court in support of and against several writ applications that were filed before the Court of Appeal and referred to the Supreme Court for constitutional interpretation. Lawyers for the petitioners and the Attorney General, who was cited as a respondent in the petitions filed written submissions in Supreme Court chambers yesterday, Attorney at Law Chrishmal Warnasuriya told Daily FT. The Supreme Court bench deliberating on the cases, Justice Gamini Amaratunge, J. Sripavan and Priyasath Dep said they would provide their ruling on the issue in due course.   

Senior lawyers said that because of the urgency of the case in question the Court’s determination may be delivered to the referring Court of Appeal judges before court vacation commences on Friday (21).  

The applications that were filed by petitioners including good governance activist, Chandra Jayaratne and Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne, PC were referred to the Supreme Court on 20 November for interpretation of Article 107 (3) of the Constitution on the procedure to remove judges of the superior courts. The petitions challenge the constitutionality of the Parliamentary Select Committee probing the motion of impeachment against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake because it is not a court of law.