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The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, marking perhaps the greatest day of its 200 year history, today declared in a historic opinion that the Standing Order of the parliament, bearing no. 78/A, is null and ...

The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) is concerned at the circumstances surrounding the impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Shirani Bandaranayake, and at reports of att...

We have self-made our destabilization. We are destabilizing ourselves and blaming others for destabilizing us. Our recent history is a history of decay. With each year, we are destabilized more than t...

The government’s claim is that the case against the Chief Justice is an open and shut case, a foolproof case. It claims that the charges are extremely grave and that the evidence possessed by the go...

Basil Fernando The state media continues their non-stop misinformation campaign on the impeachment move by the government. Several ministers also participated in this media campaign. The central topic...

An article from The Sunday Times forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission This week, newspaper reports quoted Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary and President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother accusing...

In a morning programme on SLBC today (29th December) Minister Rajitha Senaratne was interviewed. Here are some of the basic points from what he stated in this interview: That the independence of the j...

Tamils living in the North and East have a complained of the loss of all their rights. Most people in the South ignored these complaints. Some even said that such deprivations are punishments for what...

“The court system is skewed against ordinary folk,” says Malinda Seneviratne, writing a comment on my last article. His argument is that the people will not defend the courts as the court system i...

When the impeachment proposal was announced, the immediate reaction of many was that the outcome was pre-determined as the government has a two thirds majority in Parliament (acquired as this was even...

The construction of a government that prevents one person becoming the prey of another can be said to be the aim of constitutionalism. Ever since Montesquieu, the greatest of political thinkers and st...

In today’s ( December 24) SLBC program, most inappropriately called “People’s Power” – a better name would have been “A Voice from the Political Gutters” – Rajpal Abeynayake, the comme...

Within this week alone there were three events directed against the lawyers who are opposing the impeachment of the Chief Justice. These were: the attempted attack on the lawyer, Gunaratne Wanninayak...

Dear All Judicial Service Association (JSA), the association of the judges of the original court, had organised the Annual Judges Conference, sponsored by the UNDP — under the  Equal Access to ...

We, the undersigned note with extreme concern, the proceedings related to the impeachment hearing of the first woman Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Banadaranayake by the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC...

The government has withdrawn its sponsorship for the annual programme of the Judicial Service Association. On that basis this prevents the UNDP funds for being utilised for this meeting. However, it i...

Two Australian experts, Laureate Professor Cheryl Saunders AO and Professor Adrienne Stone, Director, Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, have submitted a paper at the request of the Asian ...

The Lawyers Collective strongly condemns the assassination attempt on attorney-at-law Gunaratne Wanninayake and urges the Government to take all possible measures to prevent further such attacks. He i...

The Asian Human Right Commission has learned that there was an attempt at the life of Gunaratne Wanninayaka, the President of Colombo Magistrate’s Court Lawyer’s Association and the Convener of Pe...

At the outset, we endorse wholeheartedly the appeal of the four Mahanayake Theros to the President to set aside the impeachment motion brought against the Chief Justice. It is a matter of grave concer...