Sri Lanka’s Attorney-General Jayantha Jayasuriya Wednesday refused to give an opinion to parliamentary Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on the current political impasse over the sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, saying it would be “deemed inappropriate”.
The Speaker, seeking the AG’s opinion, asked five questions, including the one on the validity of President Maithripala Sirisena dismissing Wickremesinghe as the Premier.
The Attorney-General (AG) wrote to the Speaker: “Having regard to the role of the Attorney-General under the Constitution, I am of the view that expressing an opinion on the said questions would be deemed inappropriate”.
Letter sent by Attorney General to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya
President Sirisena replaced Wickremesinghe with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a dramatic turn of events last Friday.
Sirisena also suspended Parliament until November 16, which experts said was meant to buy time to engineer crossovers from Wickremesinghe’s side to Rajapaksa in the 225-member Parliament to reach the 113 working majority mark.
On Tuesday, angry protests rocked Sri Lanka’s Capital as thousands of demonstrators gathered for a rally organised by deposed Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s party against what it said was a “coup” by President Sirisena, even as the opposing sides were engaged in efforts to secure their numbers in Parliament to end the country’s political crisis.
Wickremesinghe’s position was bolstered by a statement in the British House of Parliament where Hugo Swire, a former Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of South Asia, said they continue to treat him as the legitimate Prime Minister.
The country’s main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA), after a meeting with Rajapaksa, said they were not treating Rajapaksa as the lawfully-elected Prime Minister.
“We met him on his request as a fellow member of Parliament and his title of (former) President,” senior TNA leader M A Sumanthiran said.
Sirisena is under increasing political and diplomatic pressure to reconvene Parliament and resolve the Constitutional crisis.
Wickremesinghe, who is refusing to accept his dismissal, argues that he cannot legally be dismissed until he loses the support of Parliament.
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