Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court orders govt to hold long-postponed local elections soon

Colombo: Slamming the Sri Lankan government led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe for violating the fundamental rights of citizens, the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered it to hold the long-postponed local council elections as soon as possible.

The ruling by a five-member bench of the apex court came in response to four fundamental rights petitions filed by the Opposition and civil society groups. Elections for over 340 local councils were postponed since early last year.

The court found that the members of the independent election commission and President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his capacity as finance minister, had violated the fundamental rights of citizens by failing to hold the elections.

The local elections, initially scheduled for March 9 last year, were not held due to the Treasury’s claim that it couldn’t fund the election expenditure amidst the ongoing economic crisis. However, the court rejected the argument, stating that the Treasury had not provided sufficient evidence to support its claim of a total inability to hold the

election.