The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has decided to initiate legal proceedings against Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake for allegedly making defamatory comments against lawyers.

Addressing the media at a press conference this afternoon, BASL Deputy President M. U. M. Ali Sabry said Ramanayake’s comments that the ‘majority’ of judges and lawyers in Sri Lanka were corrupt amounted to contempt of court.

He said if Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake had any knowledge of judges or lawyers who were corrupt he could go to the Police, the Judicial Services Commission, the Bribery Commission without making comments in public.

Speaking to reporters outside the Temple Trees on August 21 Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake accused former Justice and Buddhasasana Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe of protecting his ‘clients’ and said the majority of lawyers in Sri Lanka were corrupt.