Colombo: Sri Lanka’s legal fraternity staged a strike on Monday to protest the assault on a senior judge who is also a top judicial official.
All High Courts and magistrates’ courts throughout the island did not function as judges, lawyers and staff struck work to protest the attack on Manjula Thilakaratne, who is Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
The protest action would continue tomorrow. Thilakaratne, a judge himself was attacked by an unknown gang in a Colombo suburb on Sunday.
He was admitted to the National Hospital for head and facial injuries after being struck by a pistol butt. He was seated in his car reading newspapers when attacked by the group who got him to open his car doors at gunpoint. The attack came a few weeks after he had issued a statement claiming that the government was interfering in the independence of judiciary.
He later claimed that he and his family had received death threats. The protesting lawyers burnt a coffin opposite the JSC offices in the legal district of Hulftsdorp urging swift action to bring the attackers to book. Similar protests were also held in the provinces.
Analysts however say there is growing friction between the judiciary, the executive and legislative arms of the state. (PTI)
