President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has appointed Solicitor General Viraj Dayaratne, PC, as Acting Attorney General.
Daily Mirror reported the appointment on Tuesday, saying Dayaratne will hold the post until the Attorney General returns to the country. The report does not say why Attorney General Parinda Ranasinghe is abroad, how long he is expected to be away, or on what date the acting appointment takes effect.
Who Dayaratne is
Dayaratne is the second-ranking law officer in the Attorney General’s Department and has been the state’s most visible advocate in the constitutional litigation of the past three weeks.
He appeared for the Attorney General in the Supreme Court proceedings on the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. When counsel for the petitioners applied for the 67 challenges to be heard by a bench of every sitting Supreme Court judge, Dayaratne opposed the application, submitting that the composition of a bench rests with the Chief Justice alone under Article 132(3) of the Constitution and that no other party was entitled to interfere. The Chief Justice ruled that the petitions would continue before the five-judge bench originally appointed.
He also presented the state’s case when the hearing concluded, submitting that the government had brought forward both the 22nd Amendment Bill and the Judicature (Amendment) Bill to expand and streamline the judicial system.
Outlets have not been consistent about his rank during those proceedings: NewsFirst described him as Additional Solicitor General, while other accounts and this appointment give him as Solicitor General.
Timing
The appointment lands in a crowded week for the department. The Supreme Court’s determination on the 22nd Amendment was required to be made and delivered by September 8 under Article 121(2) of the Constitution, and is expected in Parliament during the current sitting week. The Speaker told the House on Tuesday that he had also received copies of 79 further petitions on the bill, along with 15 on the Anti-Corruption Bill.
No other verified newsroom had reported the appointment at the time of writing, and Ada Derana — which would normally carry a law-officer appointment — was returning CloudFront 403 errors across its site.
