Sri Lanka's parliament Friday began an impeachment hearing against the country's chief justice, defying a Supreme Court request for a suspension of proceedings, official sources told AFP. Shirani Bandaranayake, the first woman to be Sri Lanka's top judge, went before a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) for the first time to answer allegations of financial and official misconduct, sources said.
After nearly three hours of closed-door talks, the PSC scheduled the next hearing for December 4 and turned down her request for more time to prepare a full defence, a source told AFP, asking not to be named. The Supreme Court had on Thursday asked the parliament to consider suspending the impeachment move pending hearings into nine cases challenging the legality of the moves to sack 54-year-old Bandaranayake.
"All government MPs in the PSC voted to deny the Supreme Court request to suspend the proceedings," a opposition legislator told AFP, asking for anonymity because he was not authorised to talk. The government reacted angrily to Thursday's Supreme Court call to hold the impeachment and warned that the judiciary should not interfere in the legislature's move to sack the chief justice.
"We as government MPs ask the Supreme Court not to intervene in this impeachment process," Minister of Productivity Development Lakshman Seneviratne told a hurriedly summoned press conference in parliament. High Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake warned the judiciary against commenting on the impeachment. "The judiciary has started talking about it, discussing it, holding processions and picketing, but we remained silent all this time," Dissanayake said.
"Now we want to give the country our side of the story to the media. We hope the judiciary will give their support by remaining silent." Rights groups have said the impeachment is the latest sign of efforts by President Mahinda Rajapakse to tighten his grip on power after crushing the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in 2009 at the end of a decades-long war.
The Supreme Court irked Rajapakse last month with a decision that effectively scuppered a bill giving more powers to the economic development minister, who is the president's younger brother Basil. Bandaranayake, whose husband was also charged recently with corruption while holding a political appointment as the head of a state-owned bank, has denied the financial wrongdoing alleged in the impeachment.
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