-By LeN Legal Affairs Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -23.Aug.2025, 11.00 PM) When a lawyer reaches for sympathy rather than substance, the courtroom tends to notice. When that lawyer is a President’s Counsel, the world does.
Anuja Premaratne PC, representing former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, stepped into the Colombo Magistrate’s Court this week with what he clearly believed was a masterstroke in advocacy. What followed was less Cicero, more amateur dramatics—an exercise in legal theatrics that has since been clipped, mocked and replayed across television networks and social media timelines from Colombo to Cambridge.
Premaratne opened with what he styled as precedent: that Wickremesinghe had already been “cleared of similar allegations” by earlier Supreme Court judgements. That sounded impressive—until prosecutors quietly pointed out that the present charge was not about precedent but about misappropriation of public funds.
Undeterred, the counsel pressed on. The inquiry, he argued, was flawed from inception—triggered by “a complaint from the present President’s Secretary” and tainted by political malice. He framed the entire case as little more than a vendetta. But the Magistrate, leafing through the files, appeared unconvinced.
Then came the heartstrings. Wickremesinghe, the court was told, was “76 years old, suffering from heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.” His wife, it was added with sudden flourish, was a cancer patient. With no children, they were dependent upon each other. “Prison,” Premaratne intoned, “is no place for a former president.”
The plea might have struck a sympathetic chord—until Premaratne sabotaged himself with the next line.
The lawyer declared that Wickremesinghe was scheduled to be “chief guest at the Commonwealth Youth Council in India on August 24,” a duty of international importance that required his release. Within hours, however, Indian authorities clarified no such invitation had ever been extended.
The contradiction was devastating: Wickremesinghe, apparently too frail to endure remand prison, was simultaneously robust enough to fly abroad as a guest of honour. By attempting to have it both ways—his client portrayed as gravely unwell yet diplomatically indispensable—Premaratne reduced his case to parody.
Under Sri Lankan law, bail in cases of alleged misappropriation of public property requires “special reasons” beyond age, illness, or inconvenience. Legal analysts noted that Premaratne failed to produce a single such reason. Sympathy is not statute.
“The irony,” remarked one former judge, “is that a President’s Counsel argued like a junior fresh from law school—without citing a relevant section, merely tossing emotional appeals and YouTube gossip into a courtroom.”
The result: Wickremesinghe remains remanded, and Premaratne’s reputation has taken a bruising far beyond Hulftsdorp.
Particularly damaging was Premaratne’s repeated suggestion that he and Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Pieris were “badge-mates” at law school—a thinly veiled attempt to suggest insider camaraderie might grease the wheels of justice. What might have been whispered at a bar table was instead broadcast in open court, reinforcing the impression of a lawyer leaning on networks, not arguments.
For the global legal fraternity, the spectacle has become a case study in what not to do before a magistrate. Legal blogs in India and the UK have already dissected the fiasco with grim amusement. One British barrister quipped: “If my pupil submitted an argument citing YouTube predictions of remand orders, I’d send them back to chambers with a textbook.”
Social media was less kind. Memes now depict Premaratne as a courtroom stand-up comic, delivering lines about diabetes and diplomatic invites in the same breath.
The wider tragedy is that a serious constitutional moment—the prosecution of a former president for alleged misuse of public property—was overshadowed by farce. Premaratne had an opportunity to test the robustness of the case against Wickremesinghe. Instead, he performed a melodrama that only highlighted the weakness of the defence.
The verdict in the courtroom may still be pending. In the court of public opinion, however, the gavel has fallen. And Anuja Premaratne PC, once regarded as one of Colombo’s more formidable advocates, has found himself recast as something rarer in the legal profession: Anuja Premaratne down graded to a third class lawyer, who became an international laughing stock.
-By LeN Legal Affairs Correspondent
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by (2025-08-23 19:06:49)
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