Exclusive Bench Fixing Expose: Documentary Proof Of Mohan Pieris Interfering With Case Challenging His Own De Facto CJ Appointment
de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris
August 19, 2013
The Colombo Telegraph is able to reveal today through this exclusive report, documentary proof that de facto Chief Justice Mohan Pieris has interfered in fundamental rights case SC (FR) 23/2013, challenging his own appointment. He is a party to the case as the 6th respondent and stands to benefit or lose personally depending on the outcome of the case. Read More
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Release The Buried Reports, Be Transparent – Bar Association SL Tells Commonwealth Sharma
August 19, 2013
Senior Lawyers at the Sri Lankan Bar will take issue directly with the Commonwealth Secretariat over a decision by Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma to refrain from disclosing the content of two major legal opinions he sought regarding the Sri Lankan Government’s impeachment of its Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.
BASL President, Upul Jayasuriya
As exclusively revealed in the Colombo Telegraph, Commonwealth SG Sharma may have covered up two key independent legal opinions by South African and British jurists on the legality of Sri Lanka’s impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, withholding the content of those opinions even from the powerful Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG).
Bar Association of Sri Lanka President, Upul Jayasuriya said he would be writing directly to the Commonwealth Secretariat, calling for transparency and a release of these two legal opinions. “We are interested in this matter ourselves, these are opinions sought about the Sri Lankan judicial system. We are stakeholders in this issue so whether the impeachment of Shirani Bandaranayake was wrong or right, we have every right to know,” Jayasuriya told Colombo Telegraph.
JC Weliamuna
He added that in the name of transparency, the Secretary General had an obligation to reveal the content of the opinions he had sought about the Sri Lankan impeachment.
“Kamalesh Sharma did not pay for these independent opinions with his personal silver – he paid for it with Commonwealth funds,” he charged.
Jayasuriya explained that as a citizen of the Commonwealth and as a member of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association which was responsible for conceptualising the Latimer House principles governing the independence of the judiciary in Commonwealth Member States. “We are entitled to know if there has been a violation of these principles or not,” he explained.Read More
