Sri Lanka’s most senior judge, Shirani Bandaranayake, stormed out of an impeachment hearing brought after she tried to block moves to give President Rajapakse more powers. She said she had lost faith in the proceedings.
She is accused of failing to declare $250,000 in foreign currency.
Her legal team has said the charges against her have been concocted in order to gain greater control over the country’s formerly independent judiciary.
“At various stages of the proceedings of the PSC (parliamentary select committee), two (ruling party) members hurled abuse such as ‘mad woman’ at the chief justice,” her lawyers said in a statement a day after the hearing.
“It became evident that these members had been mandated to ridicule the head of the judiciary and the