• Finds legal pardon procedure not followed, orders pre-pardon sentence to be reinforced 

The Supreme Court (SC) has declared former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s decision to grant a Presidential pardon to former Parliamentarian Duminda Silva, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of former MP Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, as invalid.

The relevant Court order was issued by a three-Judge bench when several petitions filed by the late Premachandra’s wife and daughter, Sumana Premachandra and Hirunika Premachandra, and a former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, attorney Ghazali Hussain, were taken up in Court yesterday (17). The Judge bench was presided over by Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and consisted of Justices Gamini Amarasekara and Arjuna Obeyesekere.

Thus, the Commissioner General of Prisons was instructed by the SC to take the relevant measures necessary so as to impose the impending sentence against Silva, adding that Rajapaksa had failed to follow the proper legal procedure when granting the said amnesty. Accordingly, the SC ordered the Commissioner General of Prisons to take steps to implement the sentence previously imposed on this petitioner.