Scandal That C’wealth Ministers Were Denied Access To Langa’s Vital Opinion On Shirani B Impeachment: Hugh Segal
September 10, 2013
Canada’s Special Envoy to the Commonwealth Senator Hugh Segal slammed a decision to bury legal opinions on the Sri Lankan impeachment by Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma and said any Secretary General who denies member states critical information on vital issues is not only “unduly but disrespectful of the need for full transparency in Commonwealth deliberations.”
Senator Hugh Segal
Responding to our expose of the first of two legal opinions on the impeachment of Shirani Bandarayake, Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice by former South African Chief Justice P.N. Langa, Segal charged that Commonwealth Foreign Ministers had been denied this vital knowledge when they met in April.
“The scandal here is that when Commonwealth Ministers met in the spring to consider Sri Lanka,they were denied access to this and other legal opinions,” Segal told the Colombo Telegraph.
Segal said that the distinguished former CJ of South Africa as one of his very last acts before his passing,rendered a vital opinion on the impeachment of Sri Lanka’s chief justice.
“Any definition of “good offices” confidentiality by the Commonwealth secretariat or any Secretary General that denies member states critical information on vital issues is not only unduly self reverential,but disrespectful of the need for full transparency in Commonwealth deliberations,” Segal told Colombo Telegraph.
