News
Newly appointed Superior Court judges will hear cases from this month
Six new Supreme Court (SC) Justices and 14 Court of Appeal (CA) Justices — appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in terms of the 20th Amendement — will start hearing cases from January 18 and 29 respectively.
The judges will sit in new court houses in the building currently housing the Justice Ministry. The ministry, meanwhile, will move to a new premises at the Technical Junction in Maradana. It will remain there until completion of a new building complex known as “Adikarana Piyasa” (House of Justice), to be built at a cost of Rs 16.5 billion.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will lay the foundation stone for the ‘Adikarana Piyasa’ complex on January 25. Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya and other senior judges have been invited to attend the ceremony.
The new complex, located on land housing the former BCC factory building in Aluthkade, will consist of four 12-storey towers. The complex is due to be completed within four years, Justice Ministry Secretary Priyantha Mayadunne told the Sunday Times. He said that once completed, the complex would house the Justice Ministry offices, Colombo’s high courts, district courts and magistrate’s courts and the official quarters of judges serving in Colombo.
The 20 new judges who were sworn in on December 2 under 20A have now been allocated chambers at the Superior Court complex in rooms that had previously housed offices. They had been without chambers for more than a month. Justice Ministry officials put the delay down to the lockdown in the Hulftsdorp area and the extended court holiday. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya has decided to hold the ceremonial sitting for the new judges in two sessions over four days due to their numbers being so many.