A fundamental rights petition was filed before the Supreme Court on Monday alleging that the Court failed to hear one of the petitions challenging the Government’s 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill, Ada Derana and Hiru News reported.
The petition was filed by Dulara Gunathilake and Shantha Jayathilake, a retired Sri Lanka Air Force officer. The two outlets render Gunathilake’s organisation differently — Ada Derana calls him Convenor of the Union of National Organizations, Hiru the Federation of National Organisations. Both appear to be translations of the same Sinhala body name; neither gives the original.
The claim
The petitioners say Gunathilake had earlier filed a petition challenging the 22nd Amendment Bill after the Government presented it to Parliament, but that the petition was never called in open court for examination. They ask the Supreme Court to declare that this omission violated their fundamental rights.
The part that matters most
The petitioners also seek an interim order preventing the Court’s determination on the 22nd Amendment Bill from being communicated to the Speaker of Parliament until their own petition is heard and finally decided.
That request goes to the centre of the Bill’s timetable. When the five-judge bench concluded its hearings on 2 September, Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena said the Court’s determination on the Bill’s constitutionality would be communicated confidentially to the Speaker — the step that allows Parliament to know what majority, if any, the Bill requires to pass. An order halting that communication would stall the Bill’s passage rather than merely add another challenge to it.
Context
A record 67 petitions were filed against the Bill after it was presented to Parliament on 18 August, the largest number ever brought against a constitutional amendment in Sri Lanka. They were heard by a bench comprising the Chief Justice and Justices Achala Wengappuli, Arjuna Obeyesekere, Sampath Abeykoon and Gihan Kulatunga, which rejected a Bar Association request that the petitions go before a full bench.
The bench also declined petitioners’ counsel an oral right of reply, directing written submissions instead — a decision that led the BASL to refuse to file written submissions and drew concerns from the Commonwealth Lawyers Association about the bench’s composition.
Not reported
Neither report says when the earlier Gunathilake petition was filed, whether it was among the 67, on what basis it was not called, or when the new petition will be supported before court. Neither the Daily Mirror nor NewsFirst had carried the filing at the time of writing, and there is no response yet from the Attorney General.
