The Bar Association of Sri Lanka convening a special press conference on Sunday (10) afternoon elaborated on the process that should be followed by the President, and the Prime Minister in vacating their posts.
BASL President Saliya Pieris, PC told reporters that in terms of the constitution, the President must address to speaker a letter signed by him of his decision to step down, and when the position is vacant the Prime Minister would take over as acting President.
Sri Lanka‘s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will step down next Wednesday (July 13), the country‘s parliamentary speaker said on Saturday (July 9), after a day of violent protests in which demonstrators stormed the president‘s official residence and set fire to the prime minister‘s home in Colombo.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters broke into the presidential palace in Sri Lanka. The country has been facing a food, fuel, and medicine shortage not seen in 70 years. The country declared bankruptcy only days ago.
Zehntausende Demonstranten und Demonstrantinnen marschierten am Samstag durch die Hauptstadt Colombo und in das Regierungsviertel, einige stürmten den bis dahin schwer bewachten Palast von Präsident Gotabaya Rajapaksa und ein nahe gelegenes Büro, wie Fernsehbilder zeigen. Der Präsident sei bereits vor dem Wochenende in Sicherheit gebracht worden, hieß es aus Sicherheitskreisen, und werde an einem geheimen Ort beschützt.
(7. März 2019)
It said the government will seek an extension of the timeline of the UHRC resolution 30/1 of October 01, 2015, through a co-sponsored roll-over resolution at the ongoing 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
The statement stands in contrast with President Sirisena’s comments on Wednesday that he would send his own team to the UNHRC session later this month to seek a reprieve. He said the UN must allow Sri Lanka to resolve its own issues without digging into past.
He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009.
Sri Lanka‘s prime minister has told the BBC he was „out of the loop“ when it came to intelligence warnings ahead of the deadly Easter Sunday bombings.
Ranil Wickremesinghe said that crucial information about any potential danger in the country was not passed to him.
„We have a good intelligence sharing system with India. It has been giving us the help we need. We also have got help from USA and UK. Our priority is to apprehend the terrorists. Until we do that, no one is safe,“ he said.
Mr Wickremesinghe said an investigation had been opened into why the intelligence never reached him and that the heads of defence would be replaced „within the next 24 hours“, with a complete restructuring of the police and security forces to follow „in the coming weeks“.