Sri Lanka risks Zimbabwe-style crisis over judges’ retirement age plan – Commonwealth Lawyers’ chief

The President of the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association, Steven Thiru, has warned that Sri Lanka risks repeating Zimbabwe’s controversial judicial crisis if it proceeds with plans to extend the retirement age of sitting superior court judges without broad public consultation. Addressing a public forum organised by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) on Saturday, Thiru said the issue was not the proposed retirement age itself, but the timing, manner and application of the constitutional amendment. Drawing a comparison with Zimbabwe, he said the country’s 2021 constitutional amendment raised the retirement age of senior judges from 70 to 75 through a fast-tracked process while the then Chief Justice was nearing retirement. According to Thiru, the move sparked legal challenges and public criticism, with Zimbabwe’s High Court initially ruling that the extension could not apply to sitting judges. Although the Constitutional Court later overturned that decision, he said the episode severely damaged public confidence in the judiciary and fuelled perceptions of executive influence. “As Sri Lanka stands at this exact constitutional crossroads, the country’s leadership must heed the sobering lesson of the Zimbabwean crisis,” Thiru said. He warned that if Sri Lanka proceeds with an ad hoc and non-transparent extension of judges’ tenure without an extensive consultative process, it could face a similar crisis of legitimacy, with public confidence in the judiciary being undermined. Thiru said constitutional reforms affecting the judiciary should be carried out only through transparent public consultation and should never appear to benefit sitting judges or influence the composition of the courts. His remarks were delivered at a BASL public forum on the proposed constitutional amendment to extend the retirement age of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges. (Newswire)