Judges from the Magistrate’s Courts attended a workshop on ‘A Rights-Based Approach to Judicial Decision-Making in Times of Crisis’ in Galle, Sri Lanka from August 23-25, 2024.
Held in partnership with the Sri Lanka Judges’ Institute, the workshop focused on the jurisdiction of the Magistrate’s Court, the court of first instance which broadly has jurisdiction over criminal matters.
Throughout the workshop, experts and participants explored the relevance of a rights-based approach to the court and the possibility of applying such an approach in their work. Drawing from international human rights, common law rights and values, and statutory rights, such an approach strives to advance the litigants’ best interests and rights.
Sessions were led by local experts and Foundation Research Fellows. Justice Mahinda Samayawardhena, Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and Director of the Sri Lanka Judges’ Institute, convened a session on judicial sensitivity in times of crisis. Justice Arjuna Obeyesekere, Judge of the Supreme Court led a discussion on the principle of human dignity, and applying proportionality analyses to balance competing interests and rights in the trial courts. Mr Rohan Edrisinha, visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, explored a principled justification for using a rights-based approach in the trial courts, based on the text and values of the constitution, principles of constitutionalism, and the role of judges to advance rights through interpretation.
Foundation Research Fellows delivered sessions on the concept of crisis and judges’ roles and responsibilities in times of crisis, the human-rights considerations in matters that typically come before the Magistrate’s Courts, and the techniques of applying a rights-based approach to judicial reasoning.
A new feature of this workshop was the concluding panel discussion, which was intended to facilitate discussion and experience-sharing between sitting judges of trial courts on challenges faced in times of crisis and the possibility of applying a rights-based approach in their work. The panel comprised the Judges of the Supreme Court who acted as resource persons, Hon. Manjula Thilakarathne from the High Court of Colombo, and Hon. Lanka Jayaratne from the High Court of Ratnapura.
This was the first of three workshops for Judges in Sri Lanka under the German Federal Foreign Office-funded project ‘Consolidating the Rule of Law in Sri Lanka: Strengthening the Resilience of Democratic Institutions to Promote Stability in the Face of Crises.’