The Canadian Bar Association has expressed concern regarding the impeachment proceedings against Sri Lanka’s chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake.In a letter to foreign minister John Baird, the Canadian Bar’s John C. Brun asks the Canadian government to urge the Sri Lankan President, before January 8, to reconsider the current impeachment proceedings and, longer term, to adopt […]

Some 45 ex-members of the LTTE have been arrested during search operations in Jaffna in Sri Lanka’s north, police said here on Wednesday.“They were arrested as a result of operations carried out over the last month,” police spokesman and Superintendent Prishantha Jayakodi said.There were several search operations in Jaffna leading to the arrests, Mr. Jayakodi […]

Kusal Perera ”The legal right for any citizen to access such information as declared in a statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the relevant authority, is given in Section 5(2)(3) as. “Any person shall on payment of a prescribed fee to the appropriate authority, have the right to call for and refer to any […]

 It is with shock and dismay that we have observed an organized series of programmes in State electronic media targeting the Chief Justice, the Judiciary and leading lawyers who are challenging the Impeachment. We have particularly noted that Ministers Rajitha Senaratne, Wimal Weerawansa and well known hate campaigners Rajpal Abeynayaka and Hudson Samarasinghe – all […]

Sri Lanka’s terror abductions, arrests, summons mark Christmas Eve in Jaffna28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar, wife of an LTTE member killed in the war, and presently working at SL government’s Uduvil divisional secretariat, was abducted at midnight at her house recently. Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) now informally acknowledged to the SL Human Rights Commission […]

Figures from the Department of Immigration have revealed a sharp increase this year in the number of boat arrivals from Sri Lanka. Why do the asylum boats keep coming from Sri Lanka? So far this year, the number of boat arrivals from Sri Lanka is over six-thousand – almost 30 times bigger than last year’s […]

 Thrishantha Nanayakkara  Recently, there was a wave of explicit racism on Facebook from a large number of Sri Lankan youth who identified themselves to be Sinhalese-Buddhists defending their race. They once campaigned to boycott brands said to be owned by a minority ethnic group in Sri Lanka. Recently I saw a jubilant notice by this […]

TNA to highlight plight of Tamils at UNHRC sessions .The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said today it would use all the means and resources available to them in order  to make submissions at the Geneva United Nations Human Rights Council sessions to be held in March next year.Mr. Premachandran said the TNA’s submissions would be […]

Groundviews Publicity shot from late-2011, depicting the President of Sri Lanka ‘reading’ the LLRC’s Final Report. Comprehension and cognition remain suspect. Some years ago while on a visit from abroad, my niece was entertained and perhaps a little shocked when she overheard comments broadcast over the loudspeaker from a nearby school. It was the day […]

The only solution to what appears to be a standoff between the three arms of the government, the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary, is for one institution to take a step back in order to prevent the country from plummeting to a full-blown crisis situation, former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, said, in what appears to […]

Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka (Photo-:RNW) In a report on the international protection needs of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, UNHCR identifies several risk profiles including persons suspected of links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), journalists, human rights activists, witnesses to rights violations, and vulnerable children and women, and notes while “there […]

John Marshall became one of the most influential leaders of the era of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Basil FernandoIn today’s ( December 24) SLBC program, most inappropriately called “People’s Power” – a better name would have been “A Voice from the Political Gutters” – Rajpal Abeynayake, the commentator, labeled […]

‘It is to be reminded that Speaker, Deputy Speaker and every member of Parliament has under oath of office as set out in schedule 4(a) to the constitution undertaken to uphold the Constitution.” says Lal Wijenayake, the Convener Lawyers for Democracy( LfD).  ‘We ‘Lawyers for Democracy’ condemns the attempt to mislead the masses and to […]

Independence of the Judiciary has two facets – extrinsic and intrinsic or the outside and the inside (Speech delivered by the retired Supreme Court Judge C.W.Wikneswaran) I have been called upon to speak today on your event-theme “Independence of the Judiciary” …What is Independence of the Judiciary? Why is it important? Are these not pertinent […]

Lanka e News- Were Welikade prisoners abducted during the clash ? 100 missing and Registers lost:After the mass murders that were committed at the Welikade prison on 9th November following a sudden raid that was conducted pursuant to the illegal orders issued by Gotabaya , some of the suspects detained in the prison pending murder […]

Amila JayasingheSending the Jaffna University students, recently arrested for lighting lamps in commemoration of the LTTE Martyrs’ Day, to a rehabilitation camp, without producing them in courts, is legal, the Joint Opposition charged.Addressing the media in Colombo today, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran said the issue is quite serious, as it has happened […]

Sri Lanka last week abstained from voting at the UN General Assembly in favour of abolishing the death penalty.The draft resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty was adopted by a recorded vote of 111 in favour to 41 against, with 34 abstentions.According to Amnesty International Sri Lanka, the Maldives and […]

Niranjala Ariyawansha The number of skeletons unearthed from a location at the Matale Hospital, during excavations done to construct a Bio-gas Unit, has risen to 58, and Matale residents allege the investigations into the skeletons have been abandoned midway. However, according to Dr. Arjuna Thilakaratne, Medical Superintendent of the Matale Hospital, the investigations have been temporarily […]

As Sri Lanka heads into a New Year made dangerously uncertain by the precipitation of the worst constitutional crisis since independence, mindless revelry needs to be replaced by this Government’s sober rethinking of where it wants to take this country and its people.Is it down the road of quasi-dictatorship pitting itself with an increasingly angry […]

Journalists, gays, lesbians, suspected LTTE supporters favoured; but warns of armed forces personnel The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has listed persons suspected of LTTE links, journalists, opposition politicians, political activists, and gays and lesbians, as being among the categories of Sri Lankans “likely to be in need of international refugee protection.” On […]

Min.Amaraweera on wrong side The Disaster of the Minister of Disaster ManagementDushy Ranetunge, opposite the British High Commission, December 22, 2012, 7:48 pm The Sri Lankan Minister of Disaster Management, Mahinda Amaraweera, was seen driving on the wrong side of the road, up Bauddhaloka Mawatha, damaging another vehicle and subsequently threatening a female passenger for […]

Ranga JayasuriyaThe government’s current position against the Court review of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) contravenes a guarantee given by Sri Lanka to the United Nations Human Rights Committee as far back as 2002 in the eve of the planned impeachment of then chief justice Sarath N. Silva.Sri Lanka in its fourth report on the […]

We voted against the Bill stating that the Bill was unconstitutional ”After the end of the Second reading prior to the vote being taken in Parliament, I sought clarification from the Speaker as to the basis on which he was calling for the vote as we were to vote on a Bill that had been […]

Sri Lanka should be friendly all major powers and ensure that relations are strengthened with nations that matter to the core economic interests of the country, a top international economist said.“It strikes me that Sri Lankan foreign policy, which of course includes foreign economic policy – is completely lopsided,” Razeen Sally, a former London School […]

Fonseka’s public invitation  to CJ to enter politics is being used by state media to discredit CJ Responding to state media attacks on the Chief Justice and the Judiciary, the Lawyers Collective urges the Government to refrain from unfair, malicious and false propaganda. “It is because the accusations brought against the Chief Justice in a […]

Chief Justice of the Republic of Sri Lanka Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake speech delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Judicial Services Association hold on 21st. This is the full text of her speechIt is indeed a great pleasure, privilege and an honour to be with you this morning. It is certainly not only due to […]

 The mood of the Jaffna University academics listening to the occupying SL Commander Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe at Palaali on Friday The telephone summoning of the Jaffna University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) president and head of English language teaching at the university, A Rajakumaran, to the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) of occupying Sri Lanka on Friday […]

Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake in Colombo recently.— PHOTO: AFP Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake in Colombo recently.— PHOTO: AFP R.K. Radhakrishnan The stage is set in Sri Lanka for a showdown between the legislature and the executive on one side, and the judiciary on the other,with the Court of Appeal, in a […]

Stop intimidation! Police assault a Uni student, Jaffna Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) has been informed that Mr. Amirthalingam Rasakumaran, member of the Executive Committee, FUTA and the President, University of Jaffna Teachers’ Association (UJTA) which is affiliated to FUTA has been asked by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) under the Ministry of Defence […]

 Sunday Leader master head has now erased Lasantha’s picture and his words Unbowed and Unafraid There were questions then raised about the ethics of a newspaper editor taking the witness stand against a news source for a story carried in her own newspaper under her byline .FMM activist Sunil Jeyasekara, who worked as deputy editor […]