Midweek Politics: Chief Justice Faces Judgment Day
By Dharisha Bastians -November 1, 2012
Dharisha Bastians
On 18 May 2011, then 53-year-old Supreme Court Justice Shirani Bandaranayake clad in a maroon Kandyan saree and wearing a simple adornment of black pearls, took oaths as Sri Lanka’s first female Chief Justice before President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Her appointment came 15 years after she was appointed to the Supreme Court, blazing a trail then too, as the first female Justice of the country’s highest Court.
She is the senior most Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and should serve as Chief Justice for 11 more years, potentially making her the longest serving CJ in the country’s history. But as the Judiciary goes to battle against the ruling administration, it is beginning to look as if Chief Justice Bandaranayake’s tenure may come to an abrupt and historic end.
In fact, while the island’s north east may have escaped cyclonic devastation, a political storm of epic proportions has been gathering steam since mid September and finally appears to be coming to a head.
On 4 October, about two weeks after the Judicial Services Commission through its Secretary Manjula Tillekaratne alleged interference with the Judiciary, and followed up with the warning that the lives of senior judicial officers were under threat, President Mahinda Rajapaksa hosted newspaper publishers and electronic media heads to breakfast at Temple Trees. A genial President told his guests that the Government had absolutely no problem with the Judiciary, but claimed his administration was investigating a sexual harassment charge against the JSC Secretary. Three days later, the JSC Secretary was pistol whipped in Mount Lavinia by a group of unidentified assailants operating in broad daylight.
On 4 October, about two weeks after the Judicial Services Commission through its Secretary Manjula Tillekaratne alleged interference with the Judiciary, and followed up with the warning that the lives of senior judicial officers were under threat, President Mahinda Rajapaksa hosted newspaper publishers and electronic media heads to breakfast at Temple Trees. A genial President told his guests that the Government had absolutely no problem with the Judiciary, but claimed his administration was investigating a sexual harassment charge against the JSC Secretary. Three days later, the JSC Secretary was pistol whipped in Mount Lavinia by a group of unidentified assailants operating in broad daylight.
Since then, tensions between the two arms of the state have grown steadily more intense and culminated in a Deputy Minister charging in a late night debate on television on Tuesday that the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was ready to be handed over to the speaker. On Swarnavahini’s Rathu Ira programme, Deputy Minister of Education Vijithamuni Zoysa said he had been among the signatories to the motion.
According to the Government, it had a motion signed by 118 members of the 225-member legislature. For the Speaker of Parliament to entertain a motion of impeachment against a sitting Chief Justice, the motion must be signed by one third of the members of the House, as per the constitution. A motion of impeachment against the Chief Justice only needs to be passed by a simple majority in the House.
