COLOMBO – President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said neither he nor Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa exerted undue influence on the Court of Appeal to allow Ratnapura MP Premalal Jayasekara to be sworn in as a Member of Parliament.
Jayasekara, who has been sentenced to death for killing a political opponent in 2015, was allowed to be sworn in by the Court of Appeal, despite the Attorney-General and the Opposition saying that legally he cannot sit in Parliament or vote on Bills.
The MP, also known as ‘Choka Malli’, was elected to the Ratnapura District by more than a hundred thousand votes.
A media release from the Presidential Secretariat said the president, during a discussion with Ministers of State on Thursday (10), had said “If the intention was to influence in this regard, it should have been done at the High Court stage”.
It quoted the president as saying, “Something of this nature never occurred. The verdict was given by the judge who was appointed by the Constitutional Council.”
He had pointed out that Karu Jayasuriya, Sajith Premadasa and Thalatha Athukorale had been on the Constitutional Council at the time.
“One decision is acceptable for the Opposition while the other is not,” the president had said, observing that the Judge of the Court of Appeal was also appointed by the Constitutional Council and charging the Opposition of running a false propaganda campaign.
Referring to criticism of the proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the president had said the objective of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution was to remove the obstacles imposed by the 19th Amendment. “Everything cannot be changed overnight. It takes a long time. Various views have been expressed. We want to retain some of the features of the 19th Amendment. The primary objective is to keep the tenure of the President unchanged and to move forward,” he had explained.
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