National People’s Power MP Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi has asked the Supreme Court to let him intervene in the Bar Association’s challenge to the 22nd Amendment and to dismiss that challenge outright.
The filing gives concrete shape to the supporting petition he lodged on Tuesday, the first to back the Bill after weeks in which every reported filing sought to block it. What was then reported only as a petition in support of the amendment is, in form, an application to intervene in an existing case and to be heard through counsel.
The petition he is contesting
The target is a Special Determination petition filed by BASL Treasurer T.M.S. Pasindu Silva and Assistant Secretary Lakitha Isiwara Wakishta Arachchi, who argue that the proposed changes undermine the independence of the judiciary and must therefore be approved by the people at a referendum. It is one of two Bar Association filings against the Bill; the association’s president and secretary lodged a separate petition on August 24.
Nipuna Arachchi rejects several of the Bar Association’s central positions, describing them variously as baseless, without foundation or untenable in law. Among the contentions he disputes are the claim that stakeholder consultation on the amendment was inadequate; the argument that the Constitutional Council mechanism is being bypassed; the proposal that a referendum is the remedy for an alleged conflict of interest involving the Supreme Court; and the request that the matter be heard by a Full Court.
What the Bill does
According to his petition, the Twenty-Second Amendment Bill raises the retirement age of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges, makes provision for the retirement date of the Chief Justice, and increases the number of Court of Appeal judges. The third limb has featured little in earlier reporting, which has concentrated on the retirement ages — from 65 to 67 for the Supreme Court and 63 to 65 for the Court of Appeal.
The MP maintains the Bill is not inconsistent with the Preamble to the Constitution, with Articles 3 and 4(c), with Articles 75 and 76, or with the rule of law, judicial independence and the principle of constitutionalism. He argues it falls within Parliament’s legislative competence and does not require approval at a referendum under Article 83.
He has asked the court to declare that the Bill as a whole, and any of its clauses, is not inconsistent with Article 3 and needs no referendum, and to dismiss the BASL petition, refuse the reliefs sought and award costs.
Petitions challenging the Bill number in the dozens, and no single running total has held across newsrooms. No other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had published its own report of this intervention as of Thursday afternoon, and the Daily Mirror did not report when the court will take up the petitions.
