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Friday Dec 13, 2024
Wednesday, 16 January 2013 00:19 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Impeached Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake left her official residence at Wijerama Mawatha yesterday, after Police wrestled media personnel out of the way in a bid to prevent her from making a statement to journalists during her departure.
Lawyers said the impeached Chief Justice had been informed by the Police that she would not be permitted to address media personnel from within the precincts of the official residence.
“I have served the people as a judge for 16 years. I stand for the people,” the beleaguered Bandaranayake told journalists through her 
car window, even as shouting Policemen demanded her vehicle move out of the official residence and Wijerama Mawatha as soon as possible.
“I am innocent. I have always worked according to the law. But my family and I are in danger now. Our security is in your hands, look after the three of us,” Bandaranayake told journalists as her son Shaveen drove towards her private home in Rajagiriya. Several journalists were pushed and kicked out of the way by Police personnel and one was nearly run over after taking a fall during the scramble. A concerned Bandaranayake urged her son to drive on as police personnel became increasingly aggressive. A Police DIG on the scene told journalists prior to Bandaranayake’s departure that she was just a civilian now and she could not address the media even on the road.
“People cannot just make statements to the media on the roadside – especially in front of the British High Commission,” the DIG said.
Threatened and shouted at by Police who demanded that he move the vehicle out of the official residence as soon as possible, Bandaranayake’s son put his hands up in surrender and shouted back angrily that he could not drive away with media personnel blocking the road in front of him.
In a statement released soon after her departure from her official residence, Bandaranayake said that with her removal, rule of law, natural justice, and judicial abeyance had been “brutally mutilated”.
She explained that she was compelled to move out of her official residence and chambers because the violence was being directed at innocent people, including judges, lawyers, and committed members of the public. She said although she had been unjustly condemned by the Parliamentary Select Committee probing her impeachment, she had been “vindicated in the bastions of the law”.
“In my country, where the rule of law is the underlying threshold upon which basic liberties exist, I still am the duly appointed legitimate Chief Justice,” Bandaranayake said.
