Sri Lanka announced on Tuesday it was pressing ahead with plans to raise judges’ retirement age, a move opposed by the country’s powerful bar association fearing it was designed to benefit the chief justice.
The government says the proposed changes, which still require a vote in parliament where the administration commands a majority, are meant to clear a backlog of 1.1 million pending cases, denying any link to the top judge.
Government spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said the cabinet decided on Monday to amend the constitution to raise the mandatory retirement age of Supreme Court judges by two years to 67.
Judges of the Court of Appeal would see their retirement age increased from 63 to 65, while lower court judges would also receive a two-year extension beyond their current retirement age of 60.
Jayatissa said the reforms also included increasing the number of courthouses.
He added that the the recruitment of judges had also fallen below expectations, with only 35 magistrates recently appointed to fill 50 vacancies.
Official records show that cases in primary courts often drag on for decades.
The influential Bar Association of Sri Lanka has opposed the reforms, describing them as a covert attempt to extend the tenure of Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena, who is due to retire in November.
Critics argue Surasena has been friendly to the administration of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a claim the government denies.
The proposed reforms require a two-thirds majority in parliament, which the government currently commands. The process could take about two months.
A former president of the bar association, Saliya Peiris, warned that the proposed move would backfire on the government, which came to power on a pledge to end corruption and restore the rule of law.
“This will taint the legacy of President Dissanayake, who will then join the list of other presidents who unashamedly attempted to tamper with the independence of the judiciary, only to find that their actions led to their own downfall,” Peiris told reporters in Colombo on Monday.
In 2013, then president Mahinda Rajapaksa impeached his chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake under controversial circumstances and went on to lose an election two years later.
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