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Legal institution to handle investment matters could improve ‘Ease of Doing Business’: SC Justice Jayawardena
View(s):The establishment of an institution by law to handle matters relating to investments, and which is directly responsible to Parliament, could greatly improve Sri Lanka’s standing in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index, opined Supreme Court Justice Priyantha Jayawardena, PC. He made the remarks while delivering the keynote address at the opening of the National Law Conference in Nuwara Eliya.
Elaborating further, Justice Jayawardena said that such an institution should be made responsible for supervising the implementation of projects and report back to Parliament on the progress of such projects. Ideally, it should replace the Board of Investment and the powers given to the Port City to grant concessions to investors. “Of course, when conferring powers on such an institution one must keep in mind the principle that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’, and include adequate checks and balances,” he stressed.
Supreme Court Justice Priyantha Jayawardena, PC
This year’s conference was being held at a time where the World Bank has ranked Sri Lanka at 99th place in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Index and at 164th place on ‘Enforcing Contracts’. These rankings are a prime consideration when investing in a country, he noted.
Recalling a newspaper article quoting the Justice Minister saying there are approximately 6,000 cases pending before the Commercial High Court, Justice Jayawardena said the Court was established with the aim of disposing commercial cases speedily with a view to promote both local and foreign investments in Sri Lanka.
The Commercial High Court was considered a success initially due to the appointment of judges with a firm grasp of commercial matters. However, this practice has changed despite there being several members of the judiciary who hold Masters of Law Degrees in commercial law, he said.
“If one thinks that the judges can learn commercial law and civil law while serving on the Bench it is a big mistake. I believe that the appointment of judges to the Commercial High Court who are not conversant in commercial law has contributed to the present predicament.”
At the time of establishing the Commercial High Court, the jurisdiction of the Court was to hear matters arising from commercial contracts where the value was more than Rupees 3 million. When the cases began to pile up, the threshold was increased to Rupees 5 million and then to Rupees 20 million and once again to Rupees 50 million in the year 2022, he explained.
“What will happen to the cases that are arising from the commercial transactions which are less than Rupees 50 million? Now they will be filed in the District Court and be heard by the learned judges who have no expertise in commercial law along with other money recovery cases. Does this not undermine the policy of the then Government in establishing the Commercial High Court?” questioned Justice Jayawardena.
He opined that the remedy is to adopt the old practice of appointing learned judges who are conversant in commercial law and to train them to hear commercial cases.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya, PC, Judges of the Supreme and Appeal Courts, Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam, PC and President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) Kaushalya Navaratne were among those who were present on the occasion.
Please visit www.sundaytimes.lk for the full speech
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