Public trial will further damage judiciary: Ex CJ

9 November 2012 11:09 am

Former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, while saying he was strongly opposed to the charges contained in the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake being made public, said the Select Committee should not be given judicial powers because the exercise was purely of a disciplinary nature relating to a contract of employment.

“Both the charges and the response have been made public and this issue now moves into the realm of a public trial, which will only harm the judiciary further. I’m strongly opposed to the charges contained in the order book being made public,” he said.

Mr. Silva said he experienced the same predicament when the United National Party (UNP)-led coalition attempted to impeach him.

 “This happened to me, when charges against me were made public. I had no option but to sit and stare at the order book because I was never given an opportunity to respond to them. A select committee was never appointed and to this day there are many who believe that these charges against me were well founded,” Mr. Silva said.

He said the matter was solely of an administrative nature and not founded on any criminal allegations and that the Parliament Select Committee (PSC) should not have judicial powers.

“This is clearly a matter of discipline. The real question is if there was a violation of the terms of employment between the judge and the government of Sri Lanka, it is purely a disciplinary issue therefore the select committee should not have judicial powers,” he said. (Hafeel Farisz)