The United National Party (UNP) Working Committee has approved a resolution calling for the suspension of the proposed constitutional amendment to extend the retirement age of judges, citing that a European Union (EU) assessment report on Sri Lanka does not recommend such a measure.

In a statement issued, following the approval of the resolution, the UNP said the EU assessment had identified the large backlog of cases as the main challenge facing the country’s judicial system, rather than the tenure of judges.

Full text of the statement: The official statement made by the government that a bill to amend the Constitution and the Judiciary Act will be submitted with the aim of further strengthening the independence of the judiciary and efficiently clearing the backlog of cases is unacceptable.

Clearing the backlog of cases is the expectation of all parties. In this regard, our government took steps to obtain a “GOVERNANCE DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT” in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) technical team. The IMF prepared such a report for the first time in relation to an Asian country at the request of the Ranil Wickremesinghe government.

The assessment report states the following under the sub-heading “Backlog of Cases”:

The most serious problem facing the judicial system is the large number of cases that remain to be resolved (backlog). This also creates problems for the business community. The huge backlog in the judicial system hinders the speedy resolution of current cases, thereby aggravating the situation of further backlog. This pressure on the system causes excessive delays, and the private sector and banks generally try to avoid relying on the judicial system to enforce loan agreements.

The Colombo District Court, which is home to many financial institutions, has about 45,000 cases pending for recovery of money due to breach of contract. On average, 10,000 such cases are registered in this court every year, and each of the 10 judges currently has to handle about 2,000 cases at any given time. The overall case flow in the High Courts and District Courts shows. As it shows, the backlog of cases is enormous, severely hampering the ability to hear new cases within the prescribed time frame.

In addition, the evaluation report specifically includes the following points.

The problem of resolving the backlog of cases can be solved by establishing a dedicated special court.

· The heavy workload of judges has further increased due to heavy court administrative procedures.

· The annual workload of District Judges is about 2000 cases, while Magistrates handle over 5000 cases per year.

Especially in the Commercial High Court, there is a clear lack of sufficient staff to support court administrative work and judicial research.

· It usually takes 6-7 years to enforce a contract in Sri Lanka, and severe delays can be seen as the norm.

· Matters related to the recovery of money are the most common type of case before the High Court.

· In addition to improving the capacity of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms, Judicial procedures should be comprehensively reviewed and revised to encourage speedy resolution and minimize trial time.

The evaluation report nowhere mentions the need to extend the tenure of judges.

In light of the above, it is very clear that the argument put forward by the government for extending the tenure of judges is in no way acceptable. What should the government do now in this context?

The report prepared by the International Monetary Fund’s technical team should first be discussed in Parliament. Before that, the views of the Attorney General, Judiciary and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka can also be taken in this regard and a new methodology can be formulated.

All these issues affect the lower courts. There are no problems in the higher courts in this regard.

There is a pressing need to reduce the backlog of cases, which is about 1.1 million, by at least 3-4 hundred thousand.

It has not been mentioned anywhere that the tenure of judges should be extended.

The vacancies in the Supreme Court and other courts should be filled.

The steps that the government should take to ensure that the truth is served are clear.

The proposed constitutional amendment should be suspended for now and the new system to be discussed with all relevant parties and prepared in Parliament. It should then be proposed by the Ministry of Justice, and we will fully support it.