Saturday Nov 23, 2024
Saturday Nov 23, 2024
Tuesday, 19 May 2015 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Nimal Siripala De Silva has taken strong exception to the comments of the Prime Minister that the Government may need to seek expert opinion from the Commonwealth or others on the Supreme Court ruling to issue an interim injunction or order till October 2015 until Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s human rights violation petition is finalised, which precluded the Cabinet from filing appropriate answers to the issues raised.
It is pertinent to note that Sri Lanka presently heads the Commonwealth and is bound by the rules and covenants that bind its member countries and it also has the right as other member countries to utilise the facilities and services including expert legal opinion on 
matters affecting them. So, if one were to say that the Supreme Court is undermined by taking the issue to the Commonwealth, it does not ‘hold water’.
Besides, the manner in which former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was virtually summarily punished by a haphazardly-constituted Parliamentary Select Committee which arrived at a ‘guilty verdict’ in a few hours, sans her presence or her lawyers, even without providing an opportunity or adequate time to study the voluminous documentary evidence produced and file answer, was a more serious and a deplorable act of undermining and ridiculing the Supreme Court whose head was the Chief Justice.
It would serve the interests of Nimal Siripala De Silva and his party, including that of the Opposition, better if he refrains from making frivolous statements of this nature without taking all relevant facts into consideration.
T. Mallawatantri
