Kiriella calls for Party Leaders Meeting over phone records

• Questions actions of CID and AG in Parliament

 By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

The Minister of Higher Education and Highways and Leader of the House of Parliament Lakshman Kiriella questioned the actions of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the Attorney General’s Department yesterday, criticising the methods used to obtain information about telephone calls of Members of Parliament without obtaining prior approval from the Speaker.

Requesting a Party Leaders Meeting to safeguard the privileges of all lawmakers and to discuss matters in detail, the Minister stated that it was illegal to keep telephone records, especially those of Members of Parliament. 

“Communications between parliamentarians and the constituents are privileged and there have been instances where administrative action has been taken to preserve the rights of the constituents communicating with Members of Parliament. The telephone has been recognised as the one of the means through which a constituent can communicate with Members of Parliament,” said the Minister.

Referring to the telephone call details submitted to the Commission of Inquiry, the Minister also stated that such submissions made no difference and the commission was unable to frame any of the lawmakers found in the list. 

“This report contained details of telephone calls of all 28 members of COPE. The records show that five members have received calls from Arjun Aloysius. The fact of the matter is that if Arjun Aloysius had contacted these five members hoping to make changes to the COPE report in favour of Arjun Aloysius, he had failed to obtain any favours from them. COPE made one unanimous recommendation also signed by these five members, all agreed that action must be taken against all wrongdoers. It must also be remembered that the Commission’s mandate is to investigate and report. It is not a Court of Law and no one has been found guilty of any offense, least of all there is no finding against any one of these MPs,” said the Minister.