Impeachment edges closer: Court rules against Sri Lanka president

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka‘s Supreme Court opened the way for potential impeachment proceedings against the president on Thursday, ruling that he broke the law by dissolving parliament last month.

The verdict is a major blow to Maithripala Sirisena, seven weeks into a political crisis in the Indian Ocean island nation that has sparked alarm abroad and concern over its finances.The seven-judge bench unanimously agreed that Sirisena violated the constitution when he dissolved parliament last month and called a snap election nearly two years ahead of schedule.

“I make order that the November 9 Gazette (decree) sacking parliament... has no force or effect in law and declare its operation illegal,” Chief Justice Nalin Perera said as he delivered the landmark judgement to a packed courtroom.

Sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s party had said it would await the outcome of Thursday’s decision before deciding whether to open impeachment proceedings.Sirisena triggered the unprecedented political crisis on October 26 when he fired Wickremesinghe and appointed contentious former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse in his place.

There was no immediate comment from either Sirisena or Rajapakse. However, Rajapakse’s legislator son, Namal, told reporters outside the court house that they did not agree with the verdict. “We do not agree with the decision of the court, but we do not have a higher court to appeal to,” he said. The leftist JVP, or the People’s Liberation Front, said the sacking of the prime minister in October was a “coup orchestrated by Sirisena and Rajapakse” and called for a resolution in parliament to bring them to justice.

“This first thing this (restored) parliament should is to investigate the coup and bring both the president and his illegal prime minister to justice,” JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party welcomed the verdict as a victory for democracy.