The Executive has applied its “shut up and sit down” attitude over the country’s Legislature and Judiciary in the same manner as the President using his powers to make parliamentarians sit down in the House, alleged former Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) President, President’s Counsel Saliya Pieris.

Speaking at a public forum held yesterday (7) in Colombo, he said that the most recent example where President Ranil Wickremesinghe overruled the Constitutional Council's (CC) decision to repeal his (Wickremesinghe’s) decision to extend the tenure of the incumbent Inspector General of Police, shows that Wickremesinghe has indirectly asked the CC to not interfere with his business.

He further stated that the President is providing the country a very bad example by denouncing judgments given by the country’s Judiciary, adding that this would not be a quality of a democratic leader who appreciated the existence of checks and balances.

“We saw that President Wickremesinghe asked MPs to shut up and sit down when they interrogated him. Nowadays, we can see that he is applying that theory very often – with everyone who does not endorse his conduct. He asks the CC to shut up and the Judiciary to shut up,” he said.

Pieris also added that the country is gradually stepping towards an authoritarian administration and that its consequences will be very similar to countries like China, North Korea, and Egypt – where the people’s freedom of speech has been curtailed by governments. Therefore, Pieris highlighted the importance of making the public aware of the value of freedom of speech as a fundamental right, as otherwise, that ignorance would allow the ruling elite to oppress the people.