Sri Lanka filed X-Press Pearl case in Singapore Court in best interests of the country – Minister
Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa told Parliament that those who make allegations over the filing of the X-Press Pearl case in Singapore are making treacherous statements.
The Minister said that the case was filed in the Singapore High Court based on a number of issues such as the registered owner of the ship is in Singapore, the charter party of the ship is in Singapore, the company that owns the ship is now bankrupt and if this case is heard in Sri Lanka, it is even not possible to send summons to a Singapore company and being able to enforce against the insurance company a judgement against the relevant company under third party responsibility according to the law of Singapore if a judgement is obtained from a Singapore court.
The Minister also said that he will not participate in the debate if matters that may sub-judice to the case are discussed in the House during this debate.
The Minister said this while participating in the debate regarding the X-Press Pearl ship.
According to the parliamentary standing orders and in accordance with the basic traditions of the democratic parliamentary system, the proposal presented today regarding the X-Press Pearl ship is a matter that cannot be discussed and questioned in this House. The Constitution of the country has empowered the Parliament to adopt the necessary rules and procedures for the conduct of parliamentary affairs. Accordingly, standing orders have been prepared and passed in accordance with the Constitution during this parliamentary term and in previous parliamentary terms. It is clearly mentioned in the current standing orders adopted in 2018 and the previous standing orders that no question can be raised in the Parliament regarding a matter that is being judged in a court or a matter that is to be given a judicial decision. If matters related to a particular case are discussed in Parliament, they go to the media. Then there will be an opinion of the people of the country in this regard. The minds of the judges may be affected due to that public opinion. For that reason, people may lose faith in an order given by a court.
In the democratic system, the public opinion tends to lose confidence in the Executive from time to time. People’s confidence in the legislature is also fluctuating. We have protected the independence of the judiciary on all of these occasions. This rule has been developed in our mother parliament for more than a hundred years as an obligation assigned to the legislature to protect the independence of the judiciary. It has been broadcast to the whole world now.
The Attorney General of Sri Lanka has filed the case hc/oc249/2023 in the Singapore court on April 25 regarding this incident. This case has been filed to recover US$6.4 billion as the loss to this country. This loss should be recovered from the concerned shipping company or insurance company. The case is pending in the Singapore High Court. The case was called yesterday. It was postponed again until May 15. A case has been filled to the Colombo High Court under No. 4118/2022 against the captain who drove this ship. It is an ongoing case. Opposition MP Ajith Mannapperuma said that the Attorney General’s Department was bribed to delay the Court proceedings of this ship. He gave the information. As soon as that information was received, C.I.D. has commenced the investigations. The case named 25401/2023 has been filed in the Fort Magistrate Court. However, we also talked the damage from the New Diamond ship while talking about the damage caused by the X-Press Pearl. Three cases have been assigned in the Colombo High Court as No. 11 of 2022, No. 12 of 2022, and No. 13 of 2022 to determine the resulting damages. Six cases are to be heard in the court regarding this matter. At the time of this inquiry, the public representatives of the Parliament made irresponsible statements in a way that affected the court decisions. This has already caused prejudice to the country. Court decisions can be influenced by it. A committee with a team of 40 experts was appointed to collect the compensation of this ship and gave a report after a full study on this. Legal Proceedings should be conducted based on that report.