\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Bar Association must reveal its stand\u2019<\/p>\n
Civil society group \u2018Free Lawyers\u2019 has requested Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena to probe whether political pressure was brought on a Magistrate, or a High Court Judge, in respect of an ongoing high profile case.<\/p>\n
Speaking to The Island on behalf of \u2018Free Lawyers,\u2019 Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon said that they felt the urgent need to seek the CJ\u2019s intervention, following the May Day declaration by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake that the verdict of a case that was heard on 30 April would be given on 25 May. Tennakoon said that addressing the NPP\u2019s main May Day rally at Maharagama, the President asked the people to be ready to celebrate that verdict. The President couldn\u2019t have said so if he hadn\u2019t been aware of the impending verdict, Tennakoon said, while emphasising the responsibility on the part of the Bar Association to state its position on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u2018Free Lawyers\u2019 recently captured pubic attention following its exposure of the theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury.<\/p>\n
Responding to a query, Tennakoon said that on behalf of \u2018Free Lawyers,\u2019 Maithri Gunaratne, PC, on Monday, 4 April, wrote to both CJ Surasena and President of the Bar Association Rajeev Amarasuriya.<\/p>\n
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Alleging that President Dissanayake\u2019s declaration caused immense harm to the independence of the judiciary and raised controversy over the judgement that would be given on 25 May, \u2018Free Lawyers\u2019 organisation also asked the CJ to inquire into whether the entire judicial process was under political pressure.<\/p>\n
Tennakoon said that they expect the Bar Association to reveal its position on President Dissanayake\u2019s statement. Tennakoon pointed out that during the May Day address, President Dissanayake made reference to 15 cases that were to be taken up during this month, whereas Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister, as well as Leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake, mentioned nearly 10 names of politicians, both sitting and former lawmakers, to be summoned beginning, May.<\/p>\n
Tennakoon said that the NPP appeared to have used May Day to counter growing accusations over the Colombo port container controversy, coal scam, Rs 13.2 bn NDB fraud and theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury and USD 625,000 from the Sri Lanka Postal Service.<\/p>\n
By Shamindra Ferdinando<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Bar Association must reveal its stand\u2019 Civil society group \u2018Free Lawyers\u2019 has requested Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-651134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}