BASL to take control of judiciary?

May 12, 2016

For some time, top officials of the Bar Association have been working to get their professional partners to infiltrate the judiciary and takeover its control, and to get appointed to top positions in order to influence cases of lawyers who charge high legal fees. In return for their having backed the election of the ‘Yahapaalana’ government against the Rajapaksa regime, they are trying to get the support of the president and members of the Constitutional Council in this plan.

Also, they intend to gain control of high income earning state institutions that are useful to the legal profession. Accordingly, several officials of the BASL were appointed to top positions of such institutions after the present regime took office. They plan to get the president to appoint well-known lawyer Prasanna Jayawardena to the vacancy in the Supreme Court following the retirement of justice Chandra Ekanayake as a gratification for the BASL, and to sideline Deepani Wijesundara, an experienced judge who should have been appointed to the position, by citing her loyalty to the Rajapaksas and for having given the order to imprison Sarath Fonseka.

Lawyers having links with top BASL officials have been entrusted with the task of carrying out this plan. At a leading restaurant in Colombo recently, they have toasted to the success of their plan to enable them to control the judiciary. Junior lawyers who do not enjoy the BASL privileges despite being its members, say they are unaware of this plan.

Civil society activists who are committed to the appointment of independent commissions for the safeguarding of the independence of the judiciary and for a new administration in place of the executive presidency that took the law into its hands, all for the cause of good governance, have expressed concern over this situation. They noted that the president might have powers to appoint just anyone (even an uneducated person) to the Supreme Court, but that it would boomerang on them, if certain BASL seniors attempt to influence and bury principles of good governance by the appointment of persons without seniority or judicial experience, especially those who are bent on personal professional gains.

This particular appointment could be considered as a litmus test for the honesty of president Maithripala Sirisena, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Constitutional Council chairman and speaker Karu Jayasuriya and its other members with regard to their commitment for good governance and to safeguard the independence of the judiciary, a senior civil society activist told us.