Judicial system

Both the United Kingdom Foreign Office and France issued statements condemning the killing of Rizana Nafeek. However, the Sri Lankan government which expressed sadness about the killing did not make any statement specifically condemning the killing. Commenting on reports that Sri Lankan national, Ms Rizana Nafeek, was executed yesterday in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, […]

Your Lordships and Your Ladyships of the Supreme Court, THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE CHIEF JUSTICE FROM OFFICE AND TO REPLACE HER CONTRARY TO THE PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION As Your Lordships and Ladyships are aware the Supreme Court has on the 1st of January 2013 exercised its Constitutional Jurisdiction and interpreted the Constitution holding that […]

The parliament in Sri Lanka, in defiance of the judgement of the Court of Appeal which was based on the interpretation of law provided by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, yesterday (January 10), started a debate on the impeachment of the Chief Justice. A vote on the impeachment will be taken at the end […]

The International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP) condemns today’s execution of Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan housemaid, in Saudi Arabia. She was beheaded in Dawadmi province near Riyadh. Rizana, a teenage domestic worker, was condemned to death after a four-month-old baby boy she was bottle-feeding choked and died in 2005. According to her birth […]

Anyone who uses their capacity for critical thought would know that the courts are the final authority in the interpretation of law; this means that once the highest court makes a determination on a matter of law, it should be accepted and acted on. If there is any error, the way to deal with it […]

From the day on which Rizana was arrested on a false charge of murder to the day of her execution, seven years elapsed. During this time, if proper diplomatic effort was made with the required seriousness, the life of this young girl could have been saved. The following are some of the reasons for the […]

Lawyers Collective Press Release 9th January 2012 Ignoring the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judgments, Parliament will debate the Impeachment against the Chief Justice tomorrow – Thursday 10th January. The Executive and Parliament have jointly decided to proceed with the impeachment, notwithstanding the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal determination holding it to be […]

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka strongly, unequivocally and with no reservations whatsoever condemns the decision to take up for debate the impeachment motion against her Ladyship the Chief Justice Dr. Shirani A. Bandaranayake based on the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee which was quashed by the Court of Appeal and determined to be […]

The Court of Appeal in Sri Lanka has issued a writ of Certiorari, declaring that the determination and the findings and/or the decision or the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee constituted to impeach the incumbent Chief Justice of Sri Lanka is unconstitutional, illegal and is therefore quashed. The decision ends all legal basis of […]

Today, January 8, is the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge. Lasantha Wickrematunge was one of the best known journalists and the editor of the Sunday Leader, a newspaper critical of the government. Despite the enormous publicity generated by this broad daylight assassination both locally and internationally, the government has refused to conduct […]

The judiciary of Bangladesh is struggling to be an independent institution, free from executive control since the inception of the country. This struggle was formally exposed when a group of judicial officers led by Mr. Masdar Hossain – currently a District and Sessions’ Judge – took the matter to the High Court Division in 1995. […]

Sri Lankan teenager Rizana Nafeek arrived in Saudi Arabia to work as a house maid when she was 17 years of age. ‘Our family was having hardships and so our eldest daughter volunteered to go and work abroad to send money home,’ the father Mohammed Sultan Nafeek, a wood cutter from Muthur, Trincomalee, said in […]

A government’s spokesman, Minister Vimal Weerawansa, was quoted in the BBC Sinhala Service today saying that the judges who have issued summons on the Parliamentary Select Committee will be called before the parliament to answer under the parliamentary privilege provisions of the constitution. He went on to say, “Now NGO fellows will catch Shirani Bandaranayake […]

Predictably, Government propaganda hitmen wasted little time in rushing to condemn the Supreme Court’s most extraordinary and exceptional Determination this week that the parliamentary impeachment of a superior court judge has to be determined by law and not by Standing Orders. The level to which this Government has deteriorated was amply seen by the fact […]

Kindly see below link to a petition relating to the Government proposal to impeach Chief Justice based on PSC report which is illegal in terms of the judgment of the Supreme Court issued as an opinion to the Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka. Kindly see full judgment at here Kindly click here to sign the petition There’s […]

Sarath Nanda Silva is heavily quoted in SLBC programmes trying to criticize the Supreme Court judgment relating to the question on the interpretation of law referred to it by Court of Appeal. He says that the Supreme Court has not properly interpreted the words “or standing orders” as found in Article 107(3) of the constitution. […]

AHRC declares a week of concern for threats against the independence of the judiciary in Sri Lanka The Asian Human Rights Commission alerts all concerned persons in and outside of Sri Lanka to the possibility that a five days from now there may not be a judiciary that can exercise judicial power with independence in […]

According to the news received from Saudi Arabia Rizana Nafeek, who has been the Dawadami Prison since 2005 may be executed at any moment. This was revealed to the BBC Sinhala Service by Dr. Kifaya Iftekhar, who is based in Saudi Arabia and who has been looking after the interests of Rizana for several years […]

The Supreme Court in its decision made on January 1, 2013 finally put the debate on the issue of the impeachment of the Chief Justice to rest by providing the following answer to the question referred to it by the Court of Appeal. In view of the reasons we have set out above we answer […]

The brutal incident of rape in New Delhi, the death of the victim and the public response to the issue has brought to the forefront several vital issues plaguing India. Of primary concern were three aspects (i) the nature and frequency of violence, committed against the vulnerable sections of the society, most importantly women; (ii) […]