The Supreme Court has determined that two clauses of the Sri Lanka Cricket Bill are inconsistent with Article 12(1) of the Constitution, Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne announced in Parliament on Thursday.
The inconsistency will cease if the amendments recommended by the Supreme Court are carried out, the Speaker said, the Daily Mirror reported in a filing by Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana.
Article 12(1) guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the law. A determination that a clause offends it, but that the defect is curable by amendment, means the bill can proceed by simple majority provided Parliament makes the changes the Court specified — usually at committee stage.
What came before
The Court’s determination follows thirty Special Determination petitions filed against the bill, which the Speaker reported to Parliament on 20 October. The bill was gazetted on 29 September and would place Sri Lanka Cricket on a statutory footing with a fourteen-member board — seven independent directors and seven elected — alongside tiered voting rights, ministerial audit powers and reporting obligations to Parliament.
The Speaker made a parallel announcement on the same day regarding the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, which the Court cleared subject to four amendments. Both bills had drawn thirty petitions each.
Sourcing note
This is a single-source report. The Daily Mirror filing is brief and does not identify which two clauses the Court found inconsistent, or what amendments it recommended — detail that will appear in the full determination once it is printed in the official report of the day’s proceedings.
Not reported
The filing does not say when the bill will be taken up at committee stage, whether the government accepts the recommended amendments, or how the changes affect the board composition and voting provisions that drew most of the petitions.
