Tamil parties unite in Constitutional Council nomination

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 January 2002, 16:19 GMT]
A retired High Court Judge Mr.T.Suntharalingam has been nominated to the eleven member constitutional council which is to be appointed under the 17th amendment to the constitution. Leaders of Tamil political parties represented in the parliament Thursday unanimously nominated Mr.Suntharalingam as the representative of the Sri Lanka Tamils in the Constitutional Council.

The decision was conveyed at the meeting of leaders of all political parties held Thursday at the parliamentary complex with Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister in the chair.

Earlier the Tamil political parties were divided in nominating a representative to represent Sri Lankan Tamils in the constitutional council. Messrs R.Sampanthan and A.Vinayagamoorthy of Tamil National Alliance, Douglas Devananda of Eelam People's Democratic Party, D.Siddharthan of People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam, Vimal Weerawnse of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Rauff Hakeem of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, Ratnsiri Wickremasinghe of People's Alliance attended the meeting.

The leaders of political parties representing Muslims and Upcountry Tamils said they would be nominating their representatives in due course.

Mr.Suntharalingam joined the Judicial Service as Magistrate and then rose to the position of a High Court Judge. After retirement from the judicial service he served as a commissioner of the Human Rights Commissioner of Sri Lanka for some time.

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