The Supreme Court yesterday (9) decided to postpone the ruling on whether or not to grant leave to proceeding with the fundamental rights petitions filed by Sunil Handunnetti and Harini Amarasuriya of the National People’s Power and PAFFREL election monitoring organisation, alleging that the Fundamental Rights of Sri Lanka have been violated by not holding the Local Government Polls on March 9 as scheduled.
This was announced by a five-member Supreme Court Judge Bench of Justices Buwaneka Aluvihare, Priyantha Jayawardena, Vijith Malalgoda, Murdu Fernando and Gamini Amarasekara.
after considering the initial objections presented by the Attorney General and the counter-objections presented by the petitioners.
Senior Additional Solicitor General Priyantha Nawana, who appeared for the Attorney General, presented initial objections regarding the petitions.
He said that the Elections Commission, which is an essential party for holding an election, has not been named as a respondent in these petitions.If a case is filed before court regarding matters related to the Election Commission, the Election Commission is an essential party, the Senior Additional Solicitor pointed out.
He said that there is a clear differentiation between the Elections Commission and its members or officials and the activities of those officials or members cannot be considered as the activities of the Commission. He further argued that these petitions could not be maintained as Election Commission had not been named as a party and asked court to dismiss the petitions.
President’s Counsel Nigel Hatch, who appeared for petitioners Sunil Handunnetti and Harini Amarasuriya, stated that only the Human Rights Commission has been recognized as a legal institution according to Article 146 (b) of the Constitution. He argued that a petition can be maintained by naming the members of any Commission other than the Human Rights Commission as respondents.
Accordingly, the President’s Counsel stated that the initial objection of the Attorney General cannot be accepted as the members of the Elections Commission are named as respondents in this petition.
President’s Counsel Faiz Mustapha who appeared on behalf of the respondent Prime Minister, stated that he agreed with the objections presented by the Attorney General. He submitted that the matters related to this petition are currently being debated in Parliament and therefore the Supreme Court is not competent to conduct a hearing in this regard. Therefore, he requested court to dismiss the petition without hearing it.
Ashthika Devendra, who represented the PAFFREL organization, presented the facts at length. After considering all the facts, the five-judge Bench decided to adjourn the judgment without a date on whether to accept the preliminary objections and whether to allow the hearing of the petition accordingly.
Saturday, June 10, 2023 – 01:14Breaking
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