A presidential pardon that released Gnanasara Thero from prison in 2019 has been declared null and void. The ruling does not take the President’s power to pardon people away. What it does is put a clear question around that power: how freely can a President use it?
There was a time when a presidential pardon in Sri Lanka could appear to be the end of a criminal case.
A person had been convicted. A sentence had been imposed. Then came the presidential decision, and the prisoner walked free.
The Supreme Court has now made it clear that there is another question that comes before the matter can be considered finished: was the presidential power itself exercised lawfully?
That is the significance of the Court’s ruling on September 10, when a three-judge bench declared former President Maithripala Sirisena’s 2019 pardon of Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero null and void.
The case is about a controversial pardon. But the judgment is really about something bigger — the limits placed on executive power by the Constitution.
The President still has the power to grant pardons. The Supreme Court has ruled that the power cannot be exercised arbitrarily or outside the Constitution.
This case started long before the pardon
To understand the judgment, it is necessary to go back to the original case.
In January 2016, Gnanasara Thero was involved in proceedings at the Homagama Magistrate’s Court connected to the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda.
He was later prosecuted for contempt of court. In 2018, the Court of Appeal convicted him on four counts and imposed prison terms of four, four, six and five years. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, making the effective sentence six years.
The conviction was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court.
Then, in May 2019, President Maithripala Sirisena granted Gnanasara Thero a presidential pardon.
He had served about nine months of the six-year sentence.
That decision did not end the story. It began another legal battle.
Among those who challenged the pardon were Sandhya Ekneligoda, the wife of missing journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, and the Centre for Policy Alternatives and its Executive Director Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu.
What exactly did the Court object to?
This is probably the most important part of the judgment.
The petitioners were not arguing that the President had no power to pardon a convicted person. Article 34 of the Constitution clearly gives the President a power of pardon in specified circumstances.
The argument was about the way that power had been used.
In its judgment, the Supreme Court found that the former President had effectively acted on a recommendation without independently considering the relevant material required before exercising the constitutional discretion vested in him.
Justice Janak De Silva, writing the judgment, concluded that the pardon was arbitrary, violated the public trust and the rules of natural justice, and was therefore outside the lawful exercise of the President’s power.
The Court consequently held that the pardon violated the fundamental right to equality guaranteed by Article 12(1) of the Constitution and declared it null and void.
That distinction matters.
The Court did not say that presidential pardons are unconstitutional. It said that the constitutional power has to be exercised in a constitutional way.
Article 34 is powerful. But it is not a blank cheque.
Article 34 allows the President, in the circumstances set out in the Constitution, to grant a pardon, grant a respite from punishment, substitute a less severe punishment or remit all or part of a punishment or penalty.
Why the words “public trust” matter
There is a phrase in the judgment that deserves particular attention: public trust.
The idea is fairly straightforward. A President may hold enormous constitutional powers, but those powers are held as part of public office. They are not personal powers in the ordinary sense.
That becomes particularly important when the power being exercised affects a conviction handed down by a court.
The judiciary determines guilt and imposes punishment. The Constitution then gives the President a separate power to show mercy or reduce the consequences of that punishment.
The two powers are different.
The existence of the presidential power does not mean that the President can disregard the constitutional conditions attached to it.
That is essentially the boundary the Supreme Court has now drawn.
So can a presidential pardon be challenged in court?
This case provides a clear answer: yes, where the exercise of the power is alleged to violate constitutional or fundamental-rights requirements.
That does not mean that the Supreme Court will start deciding who deserves mercy instead of the President.
It means something narrower — and constitutionally important.
The President makes the decision. But the decision still has to remain within the Constitution.
In other words, presidential discretion is not the same thing as presidential immunity from judicial review.
It does not abolish Article 34.
It does not say that every presidential pardon is unlawful.
It does not transfer the President’s pardon power to the Supreme Court.
And it does not say that Gnanasara Thero can never again receive a pardon. The Court specifically left open the possibility of a future pardon being granted lawfully and after proper consideration of the relevant material.
What happens to Gnanasara Thero now?
This is where some of the reporting around the judgment needs to be read carefully.
The Court has removed the legal effect of the 2019 pardon. The original conviction and sentence therefore remain intact.
But the Supreme Court did not, in the judgment, issue a separate order saying that he must immediately be arrested and returned to prison. Nor did it calculate exactly how much of the six-year sentence remains to be served.
That leaves the practical implementation of the judgment to the relevant authorities.
There is also an important legal point here. A pardon does not erase the historical fact that a person was convicted by a court. It operates on the punishment. The Supreme Court has previously explained this distinction in its jurisprudence on presidential pardons.
With this particular pardon now declared void, Gnanasara Thero no longer has the benefit of the 2019 decision.
What happens next will depend on how the authorities implement the judgment and whether any further legal or constitutional steps are taken.
There is another reason this ruling has arrived at an interesting time
The government had already been looking at the way presidential pardons are handled.
In June 2025, the Cabinet appointed a committee chaired by retired Supreme Court Judge S. Thurairaja to examine Article 34(1), relevant legislation, court decisions and administrative shortcomings surrounding the pardon process.
That committee handed its report to the Ministry of Justice in July this year.
The government said the aim was to establish a more systematic, fair and transparent mechanism for granting presidential pardons.
That work was already underway before the Supreme Court handed down this judgment.
Now the timing looks rather significant.
The government is considering how the process should work. The Supreme Court has, in a major case, explained what can happen when that constitutional power is exercised without proper consideration of the relevant material.
The story in six dates
The bigger issue is not really about one prisoner
It is tempting to treat this as another chapter in the long-running political controversy surrounding Gnanasara Thero.
That would miss the wider point.
Sri Lanka’s Presidents have traditionally held substantial powers. The pardon is one of the most unusual because it allows the executive to intervene after a court has already convicted someone and imposed a sentence.
There are good reasons for such a power to exist. Mercy is part of any functioning justice system. Circumstances change. Sentences can sometimes become disproportionate. There can be humanitarian considerations that a court is not designed to address.
But the same power can become controversial when people believe it is being used selectively or for political reasons.
That is why the process matters almost as much as the decision.
If a pardon is granted, the public should be able to understand that the President actually considered the relevant facts and exercised the discretion personally and lawfully.
The Supreme Court’s judgment puts considerably more weight on that principle.
What this changes for future Presidents
A future President still has the constitutional authority to grant a pardon.
But simply receiving a recommendation and signing a document may not be enough if the surrounding process shows that the President failed to properly exercise the discretion given by Article 34.
Future pardon decisions are therefore likely to face greater scrutiny — particularly where the reasons are unclear, the relevant material has not been properly considered, or the decision appears inconsistent with the constitutional purpose of the power.
What we should watch next
The Supreme Court has settled the legal question surrounding the 2019 pardon. It has not settled every practical question that follows from it.
The first thing to watch is what the prison authorities do with the judgment and how the original sentence is dealt with.
The second is whether a fresh request for presidential clemency is made. The Court has made clear that the judgment itself does not prevent a future President from exercising the pardon power lawfully.
And the third is perhaps the most interesting in the long term: whether the government actually turns the recommendations of the Thurairaja committee into a formal and transparent procedure.
If that happens, this case could end up being remembered for more than the name of the person who received the pardon.
It could become one of the cases that changed how Sri Lanka exercises presidential clemency.
The President still has the power. The difference is that the power now comes with a much clearer constitutional warning.
Presidential pardons are meant to be an instrument of mercy. The Supreme Court has now made clear that mercy does not sit outside the Constitution.
For Sri Lanka’s system of government, that may ultimately be the most important part of this case.
Lakbima News has distinguished between the Supreme Court’s findings and the practical consequences that may follow. The judgment invalidates the 2019 pardon; it does not itself set out a new prison term or specify the precise administrative steps that must now be taken. Those matters should be reported separately as they are confirmed by the relevant authorities.
