COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s government said yesterday that it had started the process to impeach the country’s chief justice, accusing her of overstepping her limits in the culmination of a drawn-out conflict between the judiciary and the government.
Official spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the papers to impeach Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake were handed to the speaker of the Parliament yesterday.
Rambukwella did not specify the charges against Bandaranayake, but said the proposal had received the approval of more than 75 lawmakers as required.
The move comes as the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is accused of tightening control over the media, police and election officials, as well as carrying out political vendettas against opposition parties.
The government changed the constitution last year, giving the president power to appoint the chief justice, police chief and election commissioner, which is seen as a way to curb their independence.
The dispute also coincides with Sri Lanka’s periodical review at the United Nations, where the country’s human rights record will be discussed. Lawmaker Pavithra Wanniarachi, who was among those handing the motion to the speaker, said the charges against Bandaranayake include “misuse of office and personal misconduct.” She did not elaborate. The main opposition United National Party condemned the move, saying it was a way to frighten the judiciary.
“We are against any interference made to the judiciary or any attempt to make the judiciary a political tool,” said lawmaker Tissa Attanayake, the party’s general secretary.
The impeachment motion requires more than half, or at least 113 votes, in Parliament to be passed.
The government controls two-thirds of the 225-member Parliament, so the motion is expected to pass.
The impeachment motion follows months of power struggles between the judiciary and Parliament. It also follows a recent Supreme Court determination that a government bill contradicted the constitution because it could give back power to the national government from provincial governments, such as for rural development plans.
Sri Lanka moves to impeach chief justice
Sri Lanka moves to impeach chief justice
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
