Sri Lanka’s Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiyutheen, accused of intimidating a Mannar magistrate, has refused to resign from his position over the allegations.
The Minister claimed that the judge was lying about receiving telephone threats regarding a court ruling against resettled fishermen in the Mannar district.
As the country’s lawyers and judges boycotted judicial duties in protest of an attack on Mannar’s court complex, Bathiyutheen was named as an initiator of the violence.
Legal action against the Minister has been planned by Judges Association of Sri Lanka (JASL) and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), for obstructing justice and threatening the magistrate.
Colombo Page reports that President Mahinda Rajapakse had expressed concern over the involvement of a member of his cabinet in such a case.
See our earlier post:
Judges and lawyers boycott Sri Lankan courts (22 July 2012)
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