Description

Parliament passed a resolution to refer the case of alleged infringement of parliamentary
privileges by a television channel to the Attorney General, in order to take further steps.
In November 2022, Siyatha Telewakiya, a regular political commentary published by the
Siyatha television channel criticised a discussion held at parliament on 23rd November among
parliamentary members and the President to introduce legal and institutional reforms on power
sharing, in a bid to recognize the rights of the all communities in Sri Lanka, specifically referring
to the rights of ethnic minorities in the North and East.
The commentaries telecasted and
also published in their youtube channel on 24th, 25th, 27th November 2022 argued that
the President Wickramasinghe, and a group of leading politicians were attempting to create
new tensions among the ethnic communities in order to divert attention, by bringing a proposal
on power sharing at a time when the country is going through an economic crisis. On 13th December 2022, the parliament passed a motion referring these television
commentaries to be investigated by the Select Committee of Parliament to investigate
incidents of infringement of Privileges of the Members of Parliament in terms of the Section
26(1) (b) of the Parliament (Powers and Privileges) Act, No. 21 of 1953. The committee submitted its report on 24th February, 2023. Subsequently on 21st March 2023, the
Parliament passed a resolution to implement the recommendations made by the Select
Committee including referring the recommendations to the Attorney General for further steps
with a majority of votes, 75 in favour and 43 in opposition. Those who disagreed with the
resolution argued that the action is an attempt to utilise parliamentary privileges to silence
dissent. They also pointed out that referring the incident to the Attorney General may result in a legal case against the media institution at the Supreme Court, and noted that issuing a
warning to the media institution by the parliament select committee would suffice, as this would set a dangerous precedent Soon after, the Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions issued a statement condemning
the ongoing attempts to abuse parliamentary privileges to ban TV programme ‘Televakiya’
and to intimidate its editor Lal Hemantha Mawalage attached to the ‘Siyatha’ Media Network.
Mawalage is a journalist who had been subjected to assaults and intimidation by politicians in
the past. In January 2023, Mawalage also complained to the CID on death threats he had
received through social media.