7th
July 2004
The
Court of Appeal today (7th July 2004) ruled that it does have the
power to proceed to consider the legality of the appointment of
RATNASIRI WICKRAMANAYAKE and any others appointed as Members of
Parliament through the UPFA National List, although their names
were not included in the National List published under Article 99A
of the Constitution or in the Nomination Papers of the UPFA.
Justice
Saleem Marsoof, PC, President of the Court of Appeal and Justice
K. Sripavan, made order overruling the preliminary objections to
the Appeal Court hearing two cases filed by the Centre for Policy
Alternatives (CPA) and Rohan Edrisinha, Senior Lecturer of the Colombo
Law Faculty in that regard, which were raised by the lawyers for
the UPFA General Secretary, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake and other respondents.
The Court took the view that some of the issues raised as preliminary
objections were premature while one did not arise.
The
Court of Appeal will now proceed to consider the legality of such
appointments, with these two cases due to be next taken up on 29th
July 2004.
M.
A. Sumanthiran and Viran Corea appeared for the Centre for Policy
Alternatives (CPA) and Rohan Edrisinha, respectively. Dr. Jayampathy
Wickramaratne, PC appeared for the UPFA General Secretary. D.P.
Kumarasinghe, PC appeared for Ratnasiri Wickramanayake. Anil Obeyesekere,
PC appeared for Anuruddha Ratwatte (who was also tipped to be appointed
in this way through the National List) and Ikram Mohommed, PC appeared
for the SLMC General Secretary.
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| Dr. P. Saravanamuttu Executive Director |
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