Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Maithripala Sirisena’s order to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections was unconstitutional, a much-anticipated verdict that further embroils the Indian Ocean nation in political crisis.
A seven-judge bench of the highest court said Thursday the president lacks the power to dissolve Parliament at will before 4 ½ years from the day of its first sitting, citing a constitutional amendment that was passed in 2015, according to opposition counsel Jayampathy Wickramaratne.
Sri Lanka’s crisis began in October when Sirisena abruptly sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place, the culmination of years of infighting over Wickremesinghe’s economic reforms and his efforts to investigate abuses during Sri Lanka’s long civil war, which ended in 2009. The military under Rajapaksa has been accused of some of the abuses.
“This is a historic judgment delivered by the Supreme Court; for the first time an act of the president has been challenged. That was possible because of the 19th amendment. Prior to that when the president was in office, he had full immunity,” said M.A. Sumanthiran, an opposition lawmaker and lawyer who argued for the petitioners.
Taking the office for the fifth time in his career, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn and the country has returned to normalcy. The new prime minister will announce the new cabinet while UPFA MP Mahinda Rajapaksa had been appointed as the Opposition Leader replacing Tamil National Alliance Leader R Sampanthan a while ago.
The EU, Norwegian & The Australian High Commission in Colombo said that they welcomed the resolution of the political uncertainty in Sri Lanka by constitutional means. They said that they look forward to working with Sri Lanka to take forward its commitments to deliver peace, reconciliation and prosperity.
Source : https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/12/13/world/asia/ap-as-sri-lanka-politics.html
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