News
Independent Commissions up and running by end October: CC Chairman
View(s):All appointments to the Independent Commissions, under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, are to be completed and activated by end October, said Constitutional Council (CC) Chairman Karu Jayasuriya yesterday.
Evaluation of the nominees received from civil society representatives and individuals, will commence when the CC meets on October 9.
The Sunday Times learns that at least 250 nominations have been received for approximately 50 slots in all the Commissions.
Mr Jayasuriya told the Sunday Times that the evaluation process will be held in a very transparent manner with no room for political interference.
“There is a marking scheme formulated along with guidelines. These will be strictly followed in the selection process. As a fast tracking process, the CC is going to sit with the recently appointed three civil society members and finalise these appointments,” Mr Jayasuriya said.
This week Parliament approved the three civil society nominees for the CC. Dr A.T. Ariyaratne, Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy and former Attorney General Shibly Aziz, P.C. were appointed. Noting that appointing members is unlike calling for applications from the public to fill a vacancy, Mr Jayasuriya said all those nominations are coming from “respectable civil society organizations”.
Meanwhile, the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), an election watchdog wrote to the CC that the nominations to the Independent Commissions must be through a publicly known, open and transparent nominations procedure.
It calls on the CC to adequately publicise the procedure for nominations and the criteria to be met by those who are to be members of each of the Independent Commissions.
The procedure to apply is for the applicant to fill the form and send it with the endorsement of a civil society organisation to the CC. Nine Independent Commissions await their appointments from the CC to be activated. They are the Elections Commission, Public Service Commission, National Police Commission, Auditing Service Commission, Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, Finance Commission, Delimitation Commission and National Procurement Commission to be set up under the CC with the adoption of the 19th Amendment.