By President Ranil Wickremesinghe is allegedly fueling discord between the Constitutional Council (CC) and the Judiciary by impeding essential background processes needed for the CC to promote Justice Nissanka Bandula Karunarathna, the President of the Court of Appeal (CA), to the position of a Supreme Court (SC) Judge, as per a CC member who spoke to media on the condition of anonymity.
Despite Wickremesinghe’s recommendation to appoint Justice Karunarathna as an SC judge, the CC has yet to approve. To proceed, the CC sought information from Chief Justice (CJ) and President’s Counsel (PC) Jayantha Jayasuriya regarding the performance of judges in the apex courts (CA and SC). However, C.J. Jayasuriya claimed to lack such information. Subsequently, the CC formulated appointment rules and sent them for gazetting, but the Government Printing Department allegedly stalled the process under Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam PC’s instructions.
Against this backdrop, The Daily Morning news publication questioned a CC member about the president’s recommendation. The CC member expressed uncertainty about the outcome, emphasizing that the President is seemingly obstructing the judiciary by withholding the proposed promotion, thus fostering a conflict between the CC and the judiciary.
Former Justice Minister and Opposition Parliamentarian Prof. G.L. Peiris accused President Wickremesinghe of directly instructing the Government Printing Department to withhold the gazette notification for the CC’s appointment rules. The Department denied any presidential influence. A CC member commented that decisions on judicial appointments might be influenced by social media and public statements, as previous attempts to streamline appointments had failed
