COLOMBO, Dec 1: The Sri Lankan parliament and the Supreme Court seem to be on a collision course over the impeachment of apex court Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

Parliament Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa declared on Thursday that no outside institution could interfere in the affairs of the parliament and that the members of House Committees should not respond to any notices from the Supreme Court as regards their work. The speaker was responding to a Supreme Court notice to the members of the Parliamentary Select Committee, which is involved in the impeachment process, to appear before it in a case relating to the impeachment.

In a riposte on Friday, the Supreme Court said that that it was not concerned about “outside statements” and that it would act according to the constitution. The bench then asked the registrar to inform the members of the PSC that the next date for hearing in the case was Dec 14.

THE CASE: The Supreme Court had been asked by the Court of Appeal to interpret Art 107 (3) of the constitution dealing with the process of impeaching the Chief Justice. Many petitions before the Court of Appeal had challenged the legality and constitutional validity of the PSC tasked to impeach the CJ. They pleaded that a PSC appointed under the Standing Orders of the House could not have judicial power beyond matters relating to the functioning of the parliament and parliamentary privileges. Therefore, the PSC had no judicial power to impeach a judge, they said.