News
A Courthouse sans amenities
View(s):The Moratuwa District and Magistrate’s Courts, housed on a 43-perch block of land, lacks even the most basic of facilities. The ‘courthouse’ lacks a separate room for maintaining its files, relevant to the cases called. All files are simply packed into fertilizer bags!
This ‘Court complex’ has just one public washroom.
President’s Counsel U.R. de Silva, President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL)
Only one of the two Courts has a witness box and jail cell for detainees. Resultantly detainees from both of the courts are crammed into this single cell which makes breathing difficult due to the cramped conditions.
Adding to the misery there is no drinking water and the smell emanating from the overcrowded cell is unbearable.
Story and pix by Reka Tharangani Fonseka.
Unbelievably the ‘Courthouse’ has no facility to accommodate litigants and/or accused persons. Persons coming to attend ‘Court’ from distant areas are forced to sit alongside the clogged and filthy drains which abut the complex until their case is called. The clogged drains have become breeding grounds for the dengue mosquitoes.
The Labour court too, is housed in a private property.
Lawyers point out the state spends large sums of money on rental which would be saved by constructing a new court complex
President’s Counsel U.R. de Silva, President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) said, “This court complex lacks basic amenities and does not meet basic requirements of a courthouse. The Court faces the main road does not even have a proper entrance” he said.
Litigants to the Moratuwa Courts sit by the roadside until their cases are called
The court is situated by the main road
The clogged drain beside the Courthouse
These four chairs in this tiny room serve as the lawyers restroom