Harsha cautions against 22A favouring sitting judges

Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Dr. Harsha de Silva has said the 22nd Constitutional Amendment should not be carried out in a manner that favours the existing Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges.

Speaking to the media yesterday, Dr. de Silva said the SJB was happy to support the government's actions against bribery and corruption and would extend all necessary backing.

He said Parliament had always fought against bribery and corruption and would continue to do so.

Concerns over sovereignty and judicial power

However, he said it was important to analyse whether the constitutional amendment could cause any harm to the sovereignty of the people, and whether the judicial power exercised by the people could be hindered in some way through the legislature.

He noted that lawyers would be able to argue this concern when petitions filed against the amendment come up for examination before the Supreme Court.

Dr. de Silva said that ordinary citizens needed to look beyond the legal technicalities and consider whether the judiciary was not only doing right by the common people, but whether the people themselves felt that justice was being done through its judgements.

He explained that this represented two separate arguments, one being a technical, legal argument, and the other being the argument of people who hold a strong faith in ordinary democracy.

Two ways of looking at the issue

Dr. de Silva said he viewed the matter from two angles.

He said the first argument was that those who had stolen public funds should be caught and imprisoned, even if this required changing the Constitution, and that no objection could reasonably be raised against bringing such offenders to justice.

He said the second argument was that the 22nd Amendment was a wrong move, as it was being used by the government to target the Opposition through false accusations aimed at imprisoning as many Opposition members as possible, in order to weaken the challenges the government would otherwise face at an upcoming election.

Dr. de Silva stated that both these arguments were, at their core, political in nature.