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Kiriella, Herath give the lie to Yapa
The Opposition members of the Parliamentary Select Committee that probed the charges against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake yesterday charged that the Chairman of the PSC Anura Priyadarshana Yapa had deliberately misled the public by making ‘”completely false statements” and “laughable” ones in defence of a flawed select committee process for the impeachment of the Chief Justice.
Speaking to Daily Mirror, UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella said that the reason the Opposition members walked out was that the entire process was flawed due to bias from its inception. He said Yapa’s assertion that the process was impartial and transparent was laughable.
“From the very start it was clear that the government wanted to crucify the Chief Justice. They completely overruled all suggestions made in writing and orally to the committee using their majority power” Kiriella said.
PSC member Vijitha Herath also claimed that they had, from the inception of the process, insisted on a procedure being set out -- but that it was overruled by the committee headed by Yapa.
“This was an entirely one-sided process with no regard for impartiality or credibility. All they wanted to do from the start was to remove the Chief Justice come what may” Herath said.
Responding to Yapa’s assertion that the Chief Justice had not been given more than 1000 pages of documents and that the documents she had were her own, Kiriella said that the statement was completely false.
“Each and every document was given to her by the PSC. The CJ did not produce a single document. This statement that the minister made to the media is completely false. If this was such a transparent process why did they not give the Chief Justice the requested five weeks time to respond instead of insisting that she respond by the very next day?” he said.
Kiriella also said that the Opposition members of the PSC did not know about the documents that were to be given to the Chief Justice until they were actually handed over to her.
“We met for five days before that and there was never any mention of documents or witnesses until this sudden fast forwarding came about” he said.
Herath also said that the process suddenly took a different turn on December 6, when the government members decided to completely fast track a process which needed more time.
“She was told to give her defence the next day. None of us, though we were PSC members, saw any of those documents until that very day they were handed over. There was a sudden rush though they had earlier agreed to ask the Speaker to grant the PSC an extension. What was the reason for this urgency?” Herath asked.
Krirella went on to state that the Chief Justice was given only one day to prepare her defence for the documents comprising more than 1000 pages and that no rational person would have asked her to provide her defence within 24 hours.
“We were there when all this took place. We were disgusted by the workings of this committee and how it was handled. Even the documents that were given had been illegally obtained, making the entire process illegal. How did they obtain details of her bank accounts without a court order?” he asked.
Responding to the claim by Yapa that there were no insults hurled at the CJ, Kiriella said that no insults were recorded -- as was the normal practice with regard to the Hansard as well.
“Remarks that are made off hand and those that are insulting are expunged from the Hansard and in some events not recorded. We were at these sittings and we heard every word that was said. The Chief Justice and her lawyers also heard every insulting remark,” he said.
Herath went on to ask why the minutes showed that PSC Chairman Yapa had requested the lawyers representing the Chief Justice to ignore the comments if there had been no such comments.
“The Chairman told the lawyers-‘don’t look at them look at me, talk to me, ignore them’ etc. all these are on record. If it was such a decent process why would he have had to say that? The government members acted in a very unbecoming manner and we were witnesses to this shameful process” he said.(Hafeel Farisz)
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