President-BASL talks on 22A: Neither side likely to budge
Having gazetted the 22 Amendment to the Constitution meant to extend the retirement ages of superior court judges, the NPP government was very much unlikely to change its stand though President Anura Kumara Dissanayake would meet a high level delegation of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) today (12) sources familiar with the issue […]
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is set to meet with a delegation from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) today to discuss the controversial 22 Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment aims to extend the retirement ages of superior court judges in Sri Lanka. Despite the NPP government's firm stance, both the BASL and the opposition believe that the government's claim of needing to address a massive case backlog is unfounded.
The BASL delegation, led by Rajeev Amarasuriya, will meet with the President at the Presidential Secretariat at 1 pm. The BASL argued in their letter to President Dissanayake, dated 25 May, that the existing retirement ages for judges of the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court have remained unchanged since the promulgation of the 1978 Constitution, and there is no compelling institutional need to alter those constitutional provisions.
The BASL issued this request for a meeting after the Justice Minister, Harshana Nanayakkara, failed to respond to their letter dated 30 March regarding the contentious issue. According to sources, the BASL remains committed to a structured consultation process with the government and all principal stakeholders to tackle the backlog of cases in Magistrates and District courts.
However, both the BASL and the opposition maintain that the government's assertion about extending the retirement ages to deal with the 1.1 million case backlog is incorrect, arguing that the number of cases in superior courts is merely a fraction of all outstanding cases.
Written by urgent.news from The Island Sri Lanka's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
