Basil directs PSC proceedings on impeachment motion to be completed in three months

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Minister Basil Rajapaksa had summoned the governing party members in the parliamentary select committee (PSC) to probe the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice and given directions on how to carry out the PSC proceedings. The PSC met on the 14th for the first time.

Basil had summoned the governing party members separately and said he had received information that the opposition political parties were trying to drag the proceedings and therefore, the PSC proceedings need to be concluded in three months.

Head of the PSC, Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva have expressed their displeasure at the directive. They have said that as lawyers they could not go against natural justice.

They have indirectly told Basil that as senior parliamentarians and senior lawyers, they did not want any advice from a junior MP on how to carry out the PSC proceedings.

A senior government minister said that Basil was engaged in an action of killing two birds with one stone. He said that Basil by issuing directives to two senior SLFPers like Yapa and de Silva was trying to take control of them and to clear his path of becoming the next leader of the SLFP.

At the first meeting of the PSC, although the opposition political parties wanted to raise objections to the appointments of several governing party members to the committee, they had decided to avoid such a move as strategy.

The PSC is to meet again on the 26th of this month.