By Saman Indrajith

Chief Opposition Whip and Kandy District SJB MP Lakshman Kiriella yesterday demanded in Parliament that former SIS head Senior DIG Nilantha Jayawardena be named an accused in respect of the Easter Sunday terror attacks.

Participating in the third reading debate on the budget, the Chief Opposition Whip said that SDIG Jayawardena, who had allegedly failed to prevent the terror attacks and now was a state witness, should be indicted as an accused and prosecuted.

“The court has that power to name him an accused. Actually, he should be the main suspect. He received the information about the impending terror attacks more than ten days in advance. He has said he did not pass that information to the President, who was the Defence Minister. Suppose that we accept his version. Then he has committed an offence as per the provisions of the Penal Code. But today he has been set free. When Nilantha Jayawardena was asked to surrender his phone to the investigators he deleted all information that had been stored in it. That deletion shows that there was something to be hidden. It amounts to suppression of evidence. That offence would have alone been sufficient to name him a suspect.

“Today we are debating the expenditure heads of the independent commissions, Supreme Court, Judicial Service Commission etc. None of these commissions are independent owing to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. If one could recall the way the former Chief Justice Mohan Peiris tried to woo the former President Maithripala Sirisena to stay in the post of Chief Justice the way the justice is done could be understood. Peiris pleaded with the President to let him continue as the Chief Justice and promised to give the judgments to the liking of the President. The judges in the Supreme Court should not forget that instance which showed the erosion of all standards of justice and independence of the judiciary. I was shocked to hear of that offer by a Chief Justice. I am a lawyer and all my family members including my wife and two children are lawyers. We need an independent judiciary, not one that danced to the tune of the government. We have a proud history of judges upholding the dignity of the Supreme Court. In 1977 the then government tried to control the judiciary but the then Chief Justice Victor Tennakoon opposed it. He did not succumb to government pressure. When a commission tried to strip Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s civic rights, the court opposed it. The government had to come back to parliament to amend the laws to get it done. When the 19th Amendment was in force the judiciary had its independence. We can remember the most recent instance when President Maithripala Sirisena dissolved Parliament and we went before the court challenging that decision. Chief Justice Nalin Perera, Justices Priyantha Jayawardena, Vijith Malalgoda, Prasanna Jayawardena, Buvaneka Aluwihare and Sisira de Abrew stood for justice and ruled against the government. They did not succumb to the power of politicians. They could give that judgment then because independence of judiciary was there,” MP Kiriella said.