Justice Minister fed up with Parliament

Minister of Justice Ali Sabry says he has had enough of Parliament and does not want to reenter it after serving the current term. Instead, he says he will return to the legal profession.

Minister Sabry said so, speaking at the launch of Attorney-at-Law Pramaratne Jayasinghe’s book, ‘Criminal Law’, at the BMICH on Saturday, He said the judiciary remained independent, and Sri Lankans could be proud of that. The legal profession would thrive only if the independence of the judiciary prevailed. “There are many pointing fingers at us for this and that, but I can assure you that I am committed to safeguarding the independence of the judiciary. The independence of the judiciary alone is not sufficient for the efficient dispensation of justice. The judicial process should be efficient for that purpose.

 “There is no point in blaming each other for the plight we are in, and all of us must strive to light a single candle each instead of cursing darkness,” the minister said.

In many other middle-income countries such as Thailand and Malaysia there were 60 judges per one million people. India had 20 judges per one million people. In Sri Lanka there were only 15 judges per one million people, the Justice Minister said, adding that the number of judges should be increased immediately to streamline the judicial process. “We have increased the number of Supreme Court judges from 11 to 17. The number of judges of the Court of Appeal was increased from 12 to 20. The results of these increases should be felt by the people otherwise they would be mere provisions of jobs.

Minister Sabry said that there were some archaic laws that had to be updated in line with the modern-day needs. “We have some laws which have not been amended for the past 100 years. We have commenced a project to update some of them and 94 such laws have been identified for the updating. We already have updated seven laws, and four would be updated on Jan 11. We hope to commence the process of digitizing the court process by June next year,” the Minister added.