Judicial Appointments in Sri Lanka

This essay describes the trajectory followed by judicial appointments in Sri Lanka, under its different constitutions, and how each Constitution has been successively less protective of judicial independence, with specific references to the constitutions of 1972 and 1978. The essay attributes much of the erosion of judicial independence to the President being the sole authority for appointment and removal of judges, particularly after the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in 2010. The essay parts with the hope that the coming into power of a new government under President Maithripala Sirisena, and its avowed aim of reversing the excesses perpetrated by the previous government will assist in depoliticizing the judicial appointments process.