Search Results for: Mahinda Rajapaksa

Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]

The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka declared Tuesday that several former politicians, including former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, breached the public trust and violated Article 12 (1) of the Sri Lankan Constitution in their management of the economy. The bench ruled by a majority of [...]

The Canadian government announced Tuesday that it had placed sanctions on four Sri Lankan officials, including former Presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa, in response to the Sri Lankan government’s crackdown on human rights during the Sri Lankan civil war between 1983 and 2009. The sanctions impose restrictions under Section 2 of the Special Economic [...]

On 20 July 2022, a man who had recently lost a parliamentary election was appointed President of Sri Lanka. A closer look at what led to Ranil Wickramasinghe’s presidential reign highlights an array of Constitutional quirks that threaten to continue to undermine democracy in the island nation. Wickramasinghe was hoisted into the presidency after obtaining [...]

Sri Lankan law students are reporting for JURIST on the situation in that country since mass protests and the physical invasion of the President’s House in Colombo by demonstrators forced the departure and resignation of Sri Lanka’s president and precipitated the imposition of emergency rule. Here Saheli Wikramanayake, a final year law student at the [...]

Sri Lankan Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe declared another state of emergency on Monday as anti-government protests around the country entered their hundredth day. On July 13, the ruling president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country with his family after the President’s House and the Prime Minister’s office in Colombo were stormed by demonstrators, resulting in the [...]

Sri Lankan law students are reporting for JURIST on the situation in that country since mass protests and the physical invasion of the President’s House in Colombo by demonstrators forced the departure and resignation of Sri Lanka’s president and precipitated the imposition of emergency rule. Here, Naveera Perera of CfPS Law School reports from Colombo. [...]

Sri Lanka lifted a government curfew Sunday for the Buddhist holiday of Vesak on May 16. The curfew was put in place on May 9 after violence broke out amid protests against current Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The curfew was instituted under Sri Lanka’s Public Security Ordinance Part III. The [...]

Sri Lankan security officials were given orders Wednesday to use live ammunition against protesters to prevent “anarchy” amid anti-government protests and an economic crisis in the island nation. Sri Lanka, which is facing its worst economic crisis since the country declared independence from Britain in 1948, has been “rocked” with violence amid supply shortages, a [...]

A nation-wide strike in Sri Lanka Thursday brought the country to a standstill. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck Sri Lanka, the country has experienced shortages in food, fuel and medicine. The situation has become so dire that the government has requested donations from citizens in other countries. The crisis has been caused in part by [...]