Comments on: A legal primer: The impeachment of the Chief Justice in Sri Lanka

By: Ratnayake w Jayathilake

Ratnayake w Jayathilake — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:56:06 +0000

Thanks for the very descriptive letter. Lot of things to be studied in this. only thing I Could understand that No one is Correct.
But it is shamed “our” behavior encouraged by the Politicians over the Most respectful C.J. last three/four months.
I would like to propose to publish this letter in Sinhala/Tamil Papers to educate the General Public who are in “Dark”

By: Jayalath

Jayalath — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:57:58 +0000

What a mess in this country , I never knew untill today that Rajapaksa’ brother is the speaker . I can understand now what is going on . I’m not wonder why the out cry about . Bytheway , he is eligible for the credit of defeating Ltte . Although , He was supported by whole country To gain that credit too .
However , this is not the time to discuss how he did it , to me the victory is support of every one . The first place he should remember who brought him to the presidency . I suppose that JVP played the major role of bringing this man to the power and they did in very good intention .

But ,who can predict that this man one day will be the worst tyrant of all time of history . So, now we need to be very careful of dealing with this nasty dynasty . Unless or if we did not be careful , this man possibly could take another tens of thousand lives from us easily . It is guarantee ,as I can feel, he would . How unfortunate a country we live ,we suffered 30 years of conflict and civil unrest during the 71, 89,90. And it is cristal clear now the biggest one is on its way .

So ,this time we have to follow what we learnt from the past to avoid the big impact without fall into political traps of rival parties .because we will never benifit any thing from who ever we support .
If you can remember the past quite well that you will agree with me , when premadasa’ reign was over and when Chandrikakumaratunga coming in that we had a hope of life , but it didn’t take a year to realise how dupe we were. Then again the people had a hope of when Rajapaksa in ,so what happened now , all our hopes have been drifted away once again .
Therefore , we as people only have done make these people rich and let them to ruin our country , honestly we have assigned them to rob us ,nothing else has been happened . Our debts are soaring up and our land is on sale .
This is the legacy we will be left with.

We have so far been Naive to realise the right people to rule our country , as a result of it we are still wandering .this is what shows from this chief justice dispute. Please take the hands off the justice .

By: Leela

Leela — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:05:50 +0000

Do you know that majority(5) of Appeal Court judges have written to the President of the Appeal Court Justice Skandarajah who head the bench that delivered the Judgement for CJ’s said writ application to accuse him for bringing disrepute to the Court of Appeal on bias judgement?

Among other things the letter says that

1) A Court can ‘request’ Parliament to take some course of action but cannot issue it a ‘writ’ (order).

2) Picking a vacation court date to make a hurried judgement is wrong.
(Hurried judgement means; the said court case started hearing at 1.30 pm and finished hearing 2.30 pm and delivered the judgement 4.30 pm on the same day. Much, much much faster than PSC hearing)

3) The Bench at Court No 303 usually handles all writ applications filed in the year 2010-2013. But it has been changed.

4) Justice Jayatilleke who normally sits with Justice Sriskandarajah in Court no 303 has been dropped and Justice Anil Gooneratne who sits in Court No 206 and Justice Salam who sits normally in the Court that hear DC Final Appeals were selected for this hurried hearing.

5) Case 358/2012 was not only taken up hurriedly but was argued and decided in one day whereas the normal practice is to give a draft judgement and ample time for judges to opine their views. But nothing of the sort has happened here.

I am sure, more details of this bias judgement and more on Haultsdrop coups and conspiracies would come to light in due course when the CJ is fired and locked out of her chambers.
Leela

By: veer

veer — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:55:19 +0000

In reply to Shan. @Shan, Good point... lets see what GV has to say about it.

By: Jude Fernando

Jude Fernando — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:55:08 +0000

In reply to Justin.

Hi Justine

Then the question is what how do we explain the origins of the constitutional crisis. I would argue that it is partly a creation of the constitution itself, and resolution of which also requires significant changes in the constitution. The following article explain this

http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/part-ii-judiciary-at-war-against-the-constitution/

By: Groundviews

Groundviews — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:10:17 +0000

In reply to Amal. Amal, it will be translated and published on Vikalpa anon.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:42:27 +0000

The constitution of any country is the foundaation or basis for running the affairs of the country and its people; approved by a referendum, voted by all the people.

The executive, legislature and the judiciary are created by the constitution.

The created can never be above the creator!

The Supreme Court is created to guard the constitution and is the final authority to interpret the constitution; not the legislature or the executive.

The matters in SL are conducted since 1972 as if the legislature is supreme than the constitution. This act violates a “constitution” which is not approved by a referendum in 1972 in which the citizens participated, expressing their wish by casting individual votes.

The crisis in SL is therefore a constitutional crisis.

By: K.Anaga

K.Anaga — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:12:45 +0000

Despite the advice given by the Supreame Court/
Appeal Court, as to how the impeachment should be carried out,the Government is hell bent on having its own way. It appears that the government may use physical force to remove not only the Chief Justice, but also the other Judges who have given judgement in this regard. In the interest of justice and fair play to the general public all the judges should submit their resignation or boycott future proceedings.If judges are going to be appointed illegally, the judgements given by those judges too will be illegal. Thus, another new government may declare the judgement given as null and void.This would mean a fresh hearing has to instituted at a great cost to the public. Of course some lawyers can make a fortune. The members of parliament who cries that they represent public and all what they do is for their welfare, will have to eat their own words-not that they have not already done so on numerous occassions .

By: Shan

Shan — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:36:07 +0000

Article 107(3) of the constitution says:

Parliament shall by law or by Standing Orders provide for all matters relating to the presentation of such an address, including the procedure for the passing of a such resolution, the investigation and proof of the alleged misbehaviour or incapacity and the right of such Judge to appear and to be heard in person or by representative.

To a layman such as myself, that reads like standing orders have the authority to conduct the investigation to impeach a CJ. What am i missing here?

By: Amal

Amal — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:18:28 +0000

Thanks for sharing this excellent and insightful interview. Highly recommend that it is made available to as many Sri Lankans as possible. Hopefully it will be translated into Tamil and Sinhala and published in the newspapers in all 3 languages.