The Chief Justice of Sri Lanka and her lawyers walked out of the Parliamentary impeachment proceedings yesterday. Up until then she had cooperated with the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) trial. However, the PSC continued to refuse to set out a procedure to follow in the trial; they refused to hand over documents and other evidence against the Chief Justice; told her that there would be no oral evidence and therefore no cross examination; added allegations that weren't formally made; gave her a 1000 page document on the 6th of December to reply to on the 7th of December; and called her a madwoman, among other base insults. The Parliamentarians told her that natural law principles would not apply in the proceedings against her. When the issue of bias was raised, it was unilaterally dismissed by a parliamentarian The proceedings commenced in late November (rejecting the Chief Justice's call for time to prepare a defense). The 14 allegations that were made against the Chief Justice were haphazardly added to; they were not substantiated by evidence, and neither were the additional allegations. This sham, largely shielded from media access, is an attack on the judiciary and the separation of powers. The allegations against the Chief Justice simply cannot be addressed in a committee full of blatant political bias, where there is no established procedure and allegations without evidence.
