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Medical Council ordered to allow foreign grads to sit registration exam
The Supreme Court has held that the fundamental rights of three people had been violated by the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) by not allowing them to sit for the local examination that would make them eligible to become medical practitioners in Sri Lanka.
The council was ordered to allow the petitioners to sit the Examination for Registration to Practise Medicine (ERPM).
The petitioners had graduated from universities in Georgia, Russia, Belarus and the Philippines, but denied the opportunity to register to sit for the ERPM.
One petitioner had graduated from the Tbilisi State Medical University of Georgia, recognised as a foreign medical school by the SLMC.
The SLMC has informed the petitioner that permission to sit for the ERPM had been withheld to those who did not have the local Advanced Level and/or the similar Edexcel qualification. The SLMC and/or relevant officials had refused to issue any documentation to that effect.
However, the Medical Ordinance does not specify the GCE Advanced Level as part of any of the above qualifications, the petitioner argued.
The petitioner argued that the SLMC had introduced irrelevant and/or unauthorised items named as “minimum standards of medical education” requirements. The SLMC has required the foreign medical graduates to have obtained a credit pass in biology, physics and chemistry/mathematics for at least two of those subjects at the GCE A/L in Sri Lanka, or in an equivalent examination) which were not sanctioned by law, which are contrary and/or ultra vires of the mandatory provision of the Medical Ordinance and thereby had arbitrarily refrained from enrolling a group of foreign graduates including the petitioner.
The petitioner has not been informed of any final decision that apparently had been taken by the SLMC regarding the same, nor had been granted approval to sit for the ERPM, until the FR petition was filed in November, 2019 thereby violating the rights of the petitioner.
The Supreme Court judgment delivered by the bench comprising Justices Sisira J. De Abrew, Justice L.T.B. Dehideniya, and Justice S. Thurairaja, held that once a person has obtained a medical degree from a SLMC recognized foreign university, no other conditions can be attached to it later by way of a booklet published by the SLMC.
Parties of all the other related cases have agreed to abide by one such judgment on 23 July, 2020.
Chandana Liyanapatabendi, PC with Hansini Bandaranayake, Sanduni Liyanage and Anuranga Wijepala, attorneys-at-law appeared for the petitioner, Denushi Vindya Kasthuriarachchi.
Romesh De Silva, PC and Upul Jayasuriya, PC appeared for the petitioners of the other related cases of the same class.
Manohara De Silva, PC appeared for the Sri Lanka Medical Council.
Senior State Counsel Rajiv Goonathilake appeared for the second respondent, the Attorney General’s Department.
The other petitioners were Shamini Jayathilaka Disanayake, M.R.N Silva, M.D.K.P.M.Bamunuge, V.G.H.E.K Gunarathne, M.N.F.Nisadha, W.K.I Dharmasena, M.S.M Dhanasekara, Selvathurai Gobika, Emorian Fernando, A.L.M Rushdhaan, R.W.D.L.H.Rajasekara, M.L.M. Nasly, Dulanjana Nishamali de Silva, W.I Madhushani and Francis Vijitharan.