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# After Differing Accounts, Sumanthiran Explains Why He Didn’t Sign.
- URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/after-differing-accounts-sumanthiran-explains-why-he-didnt-sign/
- Published: 2026-09-19T13:15:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-19T13:26:44.000Z
- Author: Our Reporter
- Tags: September 2026

**COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —** M.A. Sumanthiran said Saturday that two concerns led him to withhold his signature from a joint opposition declaration against Sri Lanka's proposed 22nd Amendment: the document had not been given to him in advance, and his party had reservations about aligning with politicians who had acted against the independence of the judiciary in the past.

“The story is not different,” Mr. Sumanthiran, the general secretary of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, or ITAK, wrote in the comments section of a *Jaffna Monitor* Facebook post about the dispute.

Mr. Sumanthiran said he had told participants that the declaration had not been given to him beforehand and that he needed to discuss it with his party before signing.

But he said that was not his only concern.

Although ITAK was fully opposed to the amendment and had decided to vote against it, he said there were concerns within the party about aligning with politicians who had previously acted against judicial independence.

Mr. Sumanthiran said he had referred at the meeting to proceedings against former Chief Justices Neville Samarakoon and Shirani Bandaranayake, as well as the 1982 referendum that extended the life of Parliament.

“Therefore I had to discuss this with the Party first,” he wrote.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f0/aa/f0aaf7b7-6b61-437a-846a-1a80de683912/content/images/2026/09/after-differing-accounts-suman-d7c9ac-1-1.png)

M.A. Sumanthiran’s response in the comments section of Jaffna Monitor’s Facebook post, in which he said both the need to consult his party and concerns over judicial independence were behind his decision not to sign the 22nd Amendment declaration.

His response follows differing accounts of what he told participants at the meeting, held at the Janaki Hotel in Colombo under the banner of the Freedom Struggle Front to Protect Democracy.

*Jaffna Monitor* [initially reported](https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/sumanthiran-declines-to-sign-opposition-statement-on-22nd-amendment/), in an account also widely carried in the Tamil-language press, that Mr. Sumanthiran had declined to sign because he was unwilling to campaign for judicial independence alongside politicians whom he accused of having undermined it. The report also said that ITAK had not been consulted about the declaration beforehand.

Several opposition figures who attended the meeting later contacted *Jaffna Monitor* and [disputed that characterization](https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/featured/why-sumanthiran-didnt-sign-opposition-leaders-tell-a-different-story/). They said Mr. Sumanthiran’s principal explanation in the room was that he had not been given enough time to consider the declaration and could not sign it without consulting his party.

They acknowledged that he had referred to previous challenges to judicial independence but said he had not presented that as his reason for withholding his signature.

The gathering brought together opposition politicians, civic groups and civil society representatives seeking to organize against the proposed amendment. It ended with a declaration warning that the measure threatened judicial independence, democratic institutions and citizens’ rights.

Mr. Sumanthiran attended the meeting but did not sign the declaration.

Mr. Sumanthiran appeared in the Supreme Court proceedings on the amendment earlier this month and asked that a full bench hear the 67 petitions, arguing that the measure affects the tenure of superior court judges and raises a potential conflict of interest. Several other President's Counsel supported the request. The court refused it, and the petitions proceeded before a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena.