• Says EC shouldn’t be represented by him in LG poll cases

President and Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed that Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) President, President’s Counsel (PC) Saliya Pieris should not be representing the Election Commission (EC) in the cases related to the Local Government (LG) poll as Pieris is a “political” lawyer.

The President made these comments during a debate in Parliament yesterday (23). Whilst speaking of the cases filed against the EC recently by various individuals pertaining to the LG election, he said: “When they opted for Pieris, some Government Parliamentarians approached me and asked ‘How can they (the EC) have Pieris representing them? He’s a political lawyer. They should have a lawyer who is not attached to politics or, give them the Attorney General (AG), Sanjay Rajaratnam PC. I said that it’s difficult to give them the AG and I said that I won’t intervene in this matter. I accept that if they are selecting a lawyer, then that lawyer should be one who is not attached to any political party. The one they selected is a lawyer who is of the view that this Government has no power and that this Government cannot function. Then, it is better to take a lawyer from the Opposition’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) or the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). That’s all I have to say.”

Attempts to contact Pieris in this regard proved futile.

Pieris, in his capacity as the President of the BASL, during the period of the “aragalaya” (people’s struggle to oust former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the then Government) has voiced his criticisms against several of the Government’s repressive measures that were especially targeting protestors and also personally appeared, along with other lawyers, as the legal representative for the aggrieved, when such injustices were committed.