Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has overturned President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to dissolve parliament and ordered a halt to preparations for snap elections.
The decision on Tuesday was the latest in a protracted political crisis triggered by Sirisena’s surprise move on October 26 to fire Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replace him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, a controversial former president.
Both men, however, are claiming the post of prime minister, and Wickremesinghe is holed up in the official residence and refusing to step down.
The 225-member parliament is expected to reconvene on Wednesday and go ahead with a vote to test if Rajapaksa is able to summon a majority in the legislature.
“I will go to parliament tomorrow and we will show we are the legitimate government of Sri Lanka,” Wickremesinghe said at the Temple Trees residence.
For its part, Rajapaksa’s party said they will appeal to a fuller bench of the highest court in the land to reconsider Tuesday’s decision.
The ruling came a day after political parties petitioned the court against the president’s decision last week to dissolve parliament and call for a snap vote on January 5.
The three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice Nalin Perera read out the landmark decision to a packed court in the capital, Colombo.
The court also said it would give a final verdict on the petition on December 7, after three more days of hearings.
“[This decision] effectively says the court believes … the president has acted unconstitutionally in dissolving the parliament,” Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Colombo, said.
