Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the island’s constitution does not allow foreign judges to participate in any accountability mechanisms, a key aspect of a 2015 resolution that Colombo co-sponsored.
Speaking to the press in the southern capital, Mr Samaraweera reportedly said the inclusion of foreign judges as mandated by a UN Human Rights Council resolution “were in fact just a recommendation made by the international community when drafting the resolution,” according to the Daily Mirror.
He was also quoted as saying, that “as a sovereign nation we are entitled to look at all options”.
“We cannot bring in foreign judicial officers under the existing constitution, but we are exploring all our options,” he continued.
See more from the Daily Mirror here and Athavan News here.
Senior Sri Lankan officials have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the inclusion of foreign judges in an accountability mechanism - a key demand deom Tamil victims in the North-East.
