{"id":101285,"date":"2013-08-20T00:18:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T18:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=101285"},"modified":"2013-08-26T10:21:54","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T04:51:54","slug":"canada-slams-commonwealth-sg-sharma-over-burying-legal-reports-on-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/canada-slams-commonwealth-sg-sharma-over-burying-legal-reports-on-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada Slams Commonwealth SG Sharma Over Burying Legal Reports On Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is hard to understand why legal opinions sought on the Sri Lankan impeachment of CJ Shirani Bandaranayake by the Commonwealth Secretariat were not shared with the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) before their most recent meeting, Canada&#8217;s Commonwealth Envoy, Senator <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Hugh+Segal&amp;x=11&amp;y=5\">Hugh Segal<\/a><\/span> told Colombo Telegraph.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_101287\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/canada-slams-commonwealth-sg-sharma-over-burying-legal-reports-on-sri-lanka\/hugh-segal\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-101287\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-101287\" class=\"size-full wp-image-101287\" title=\"Hugh Segal\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Hugh-Segal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"277\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-101287\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Hugh Segal<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It was understandable that the Secretary General should have commissioned independent legal and constitutional opinions about the impeachment of the Sri Lankan <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Shirani+Bandaranayake&amp;x=8&amp;y=5\">Chief Justice<\/a><\/span> since he had formally expressed deep and public concern about the impeachment some weeks earlier, Segal said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That any such opinions,once received,were not shared with the members of the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Commonwealth+Ministerial+Action+Group&amp;x=9&amp;y=5\">CMAG<\/a><\/span>, before their most recent discussions which included a long engagement on Sri Lanka and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Commonwealth+Heads+of+Government+Meeting&amp;x=8&amp;y=5\">CHOGM<\/a><\/span> is, however, much harder to understand,&#8221; the Canadian Envoy to the Commonwealth said in response to questions posed by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\">Colombo Telegraph<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;CMAG,under the distinguished leadership of the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh,had the right to those opinions before they met,&#8221; Segal observed.<\/p>\n<p>He added that transparency within the Commonwealth has experienced a setback of substance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The &#8216;good offices&#8217;of the Secretary General should not preclude Commonwealth ministers having access to research for which they have paid,&#8221; Segal asserted.<\/p>\n<p>Segal&#8217;s comments have been echoed by the President of the Sri Lankan Bar <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Upul+Jayasuriya&amp;x=5&amp;y=3\">Upul Jayasuriya<\/a><\/span>. Jayasuriya said that in the interest of transparency, since Sharma did not pay for the opinions personally\u00a0 he had an obligation to reveal those opinions to the Commonwealth membership.<\/p>\n<p>As exclusively reported in the Colombo Telegraph, Commonwealth Secretary General <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Kamalesh+Sharma&amp;x=11&amp;y=5\">Kamalesh Sharma<\/a><\/span> may have covered up two key independent legal opinions on the legality of Sri Lanka\u2019s impeachment of Chief Justice <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Shirani+Bandaranayake&amp;x=11&amp;y=4\">Shirani Bandaranayake<\/a><\/span>, withholding the content of those opinions even from the powerful CMAG. Speculation in Commonwealth and diplomatic circles is that the Secretary General has decided not to disclose the content of the opinions because they may have forced him to act against Sri Lanka which is the next host of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this November, a top diplomat told Colombo Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p>Related posts;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a title=\"Exclusive: Secretary General Hides Two Key Legal Findings On CJ Impeachment From CMAG\" href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/exclusive-secretary-general-hides-two-key-legal-findings-on-cj-impeachment-from-cmag\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Exclusive: Secretary General Hides Two Key Legal Findings On CJ Impeachment From CMAG<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a title=\"C\u2019wealth Spokesman, Presidential Media In Joint Twitter Q&amp;A \u2013 Uku Fails To Answer Tough Questions On CJ Impeachment Reports And Others\" href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/cwealth-spokesman-presidential-media-in-joint-twitter-qa-uku-fails-to-answer-tough-questions-on-cj-impeachment-reports-and-others\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">C\u2019wealth Spokesman, Presidential Media In Joint Twitter Q&amp;A \u2013 Uku Fails To Answer Tough Questions On CJ Impeachment Reports And Others<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a title=\"Release The Buried Reports, Be Transparent \u2013 Bar Association SL Tells Commonwealth Sharma\" href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/release-the-buried-reports-be-transparent-bar-association-sl-tells-commonwealth-sharma\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Release The Buried Reports, Be Transparent \u2013 Bar Association SL Tells Commonwealth Sharma<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":101287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2187,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-most-popular","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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