ICJ urges Lanka to reinstate ex-chief justice
AP – By Bharatha Mallawarachchi
The International Commission of Jurists has condemned the appointment of Mohan Peiris as Sri Lanka’s chief justice and urged the government to reinstate the former top judge who was fired after a highly criticized impeachment process.
The group denounced the appointment of Mohan Peiris, a retired attorney general and a legal adviser to the Cabinet, as chief justice, saying it “raises serious concerns about the future of the rule of law and accountability” and “a further assault on the independence of the judiciary.”
Peiris, was sworn in before President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday, two days after Shirani Bandaranayake was dismissed as chief justice, after a parliamentary committee found her guilty of having unexplained wealth and misuse of power.
“Mohan Peiris’ appointment as the new chief justice, after a politically compromised and procedurally flawed impeachment, adds serious insult to the gross injury already inflicted on Sri Lanka’s long suffering judiciary,” Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Asia director, said in a statement on the group’s web site.
He said during Peiris’ tenure as attorney general and the government’s top legal adviser, he “consistently blocked efforts to hold the government responsible for serious human rights violations and disregarded international law and standards.”
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What is required from the UN, Commonwealth and other international organization to isolate Sri Lanaka and impose all
This comment from ICJ is pretty serious; it will have significant weight in the free world except perhaps with Russia and China.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) have stated that the appointment of the new Chief Justice raises concerns about the future of the Rule of Law and accountability in Sri Lanka.
So what action can the ICJ take against the Government of Sri Lanka regarding the future of the Rule of Law and accountability in Sri Lanka? The Government and the Executive President will only take this statement as another joke and throw it into the garbage bin. No power on earth will be able to dictate terms to an Executive which has a 2/3 steamrolling majorety in the Parliament of Sri Lanka and the Government will do anything under the sun to dismiss this appeal and the statement made by the ICJ. Good luck for the statement?
Let’s together will pay the price….
The problem in this country is that law and order is not fair at all.
I received personally some serious problems, lost my pensionable job and so no.Then I complained to Sri Lanka police and wrote another highest places like relevant defense Ministries. Everyone is passing the ball to someone else.
I never received any reply at least because the accuse is very powerful government official and their network.
We all observed demonstrations of government thugs in front of supreme court but according to Sri Lanka police it is legal but we see in the same time how police disturbed lawyers in the same day for their objections.
My conclusion is there are two laws in this country-one for government supporters and other for objectors.
What has ICJ done to curb the excesses of US govt in committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights abuse? What has ICJ done to decry the murder of innocent Rizana on a trumped-up charge in Saudi Arabia?
ICJ is another tool of USA and the imperial West to keep small nations like SL trodden under their feet, till they bow to the will of USA and the imperial West. This is neo-colonialism in another guise.
ICJ must not interfere in the internal affairs of the sovereign Republic of SL. The former CJ has been found guilty by the PSC of corruption. Her husband had also been sacked from chairmanship of NSB for theft and fraud. People holding high office in SL should be squeaky clean. Otherwise the whole system of good governance will breakdown with disasterous consequences to the nation.
It is important that the CJ should be incorruptible for an impartial judiciary in SL, that people can trust. How many SL lawyers and judges could we trust to be incorrupt? I have been battered by such corrupt lawyers and judges in a civil case. I failed to win the case because my lawyer had been ‘bought’ by the other side, even though justice should have prevailed in my favour. Even the judge was corrupt. But there was nothing I could do as the whole judiciary need to be cleansed from top to bottom. At least a start has been made by sacking the corrupt former CJ.
Now the new CJ should clean the house of the other corrupt lawyers and judges. It is an insurmountable task perhaps. But with the right will, motivation and support of the Hon President and Justice Minister we can achieve it. There are lot of ‘jarava kana kaputas’ among the lawyers and judges who need to be sacked also. The sooner the better. The honest lawyers and judges should rally round the Hon President to cleanse the judiciary. Now is the time! The imperial West, the INGOs and NGOs and enemies of the nation should be kept out and even thrown out of the country.
ICJ is free to stick their protest in their white colour rear-end. Sri Lanka is a a sovereign country and ICJ is a biased organisation with a fancy name that licks boots of the colonial west.
Who care less about what ICJ says. When MR visited Australia last year ICJ protested him in Australia. That shows how politically biased is this fancy ICJ.
Folks, ICJ is just another NGO with a stinky nose and nothing else. Don’t worry about them. I can also create a similar NGO tomorrow. They are very cheap.
Those people demanding to isolate Sri lanka never demanded to isolate US or UK for destroying Iraq with a fake claim of “Weapons of mass destruction”. Why is that?
We all have experienced personal problems of various nature from our own governance. That is common to every country and do any one of you think “absolutely every citizen” in other countries including colonial west has “absolute fairness”? The answer is resounding “No”. No country is perfect and neither are we to start with. But those personal grudges must not he used to destroy our mother land using external enemies. That is exactly what happened to Egypt and Libya. Now see what happened to those countries? Are they better off than the dictators they had before? Be honest in answering that question.
Dictatorship not necessary absolutely bad and democracy is not necessarily perfectly good either. They both have their own good and bad features. We have to pick what is good for our own situation, not for a “western situation”.
By betraying our country to western enemies, none of you will win. Those western goons do not love you. They only love your money. If you don’t have money then they want to control you as a puppy dog. That is the bitter truth.
Be smart enough to not to get caught in that trap.