{"id":44241,"date":"2015-05-27T22:43:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T04:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=44241"},"modified":"2015-05-27T14:13:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T21:13:03","slug":"sarath-silva-does-another-u-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/05\/27\/sarath-silva-does-another-u-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarath Silva does another U-turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Daily Mirror<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Former Chief Justice Sarath Silva launching a scathing attack on the present government, saying that it \u2018was illegal from its inception.\u2019 He said that he \u2018regrets having lit the fire\u2019 by opposing President Rajapaksa\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

Silva, in a speech at the Organisation of Professional Associations lashed out at the government listing three aspects in which he believed the government had failed. I didn\u2019t expect Maithripala Sirisena to contest the last election. The moment he announced his candidacy I knew this wasn\u2019t moving in the right direction. They sent me a list of meetings at which I was to speak.<\/p>\n

I put the list into the dustbin,\u201d he said. This is in sharp contrast to statements given to the media, including Daily Mirror, in which he unreservedly supported the candidacy of Sirisena. The only issue I had with President Mahinda Rajapaksa was my opposition to the 18th amendment. I don\u2019t think it is good for a person to contest thrice. That\u2019s why I opposed it. I lit this fire by saying that he couldn\u2019t contest a third time, and I regret it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He likened the presnt government to a \u2018pickle which is hard to digest.\u2019 I must be honest, I reluctantly voted for Maithripala because I didn\u2019t believe that Rajapaksa should have contested thrice. Thereafter I watched the swearing in. The Chief Justice wasn\u2019t present, a tradition that was upheld for a long time. That\u2019s the first thing. And then suddenly Ranil Wickremesinghe takes oaths as Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

This is whilst a Prime Minister was still in his seat. Is that good governance? This government was illegal since its inception,\u201d he said. Silva, detailing his second criticism, said that the manner in which Mohan Peiris, the then sitting Chief Justice was removed reduced the judiciary to a \u2018comedy.\u2019 I told Mahinda not to appoint him and instead to appoint a career judicial officer.<\/p>\n

It was Mohan who gave Mahinda many of the dead ropes. But still he was the sitting Chief Justice. There is a process through which he could be removed specified in the Constitution. Instead, the President just signed a letter while Mohan was outstation and then the previous one was brought in.<\/p>\n

Then she also resigned. It\u2019s a comedy really. Anyone reading history in a few years time will actually wonder if this was some street show,\u201d he said. –<\/p>\n

See more at: http:\/\/www.dailymirror.lk\/73899\/sarath-n-silva#sthash.i9VJ97NU.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Daily Mirror Former Chief Justice Sarath Silva launching a scathing attack on the present government, saying that it \u2018was illegal from its inception.\u2019 He said that he \u2018regrets having lit the fire\u2019 by opposing President Rajapaksa\u2019s candidacy. Silva, in a speech at the Organisation of Professional Associations lashed out at the government listing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}