The Constitutional Council (CC) has refused to disclose information regarding voting patterns of members, sought under the Right to Information Act, No. 12 of 2016, over the President's nominee for the post of Auditor General.
The information request was submitted on 1 January 2026 by Attorney-at-Law Aazath Atham Lebbe, following a news report published in The Sunday Times on 21 December 2025 titled “Auditor General’s post: CC rejects yet another President’s nominee, this time an Army officer.”
The request sought details on the total number of members of the Constitutional Council, as well as the names of members who voted in favour of, against, or abstained from voting on the nomination of Army Officer Mr. O. R. Rajasinghe.
In its response dated 13 January 2026, the Information Officer of the Constitutional Council stated that information relating to the total number of members and their designations is already available on the official website of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.
However, the Council declined to disclose the names of members who voted in favour of or against the nominee, citing Section 5(1)(g) of the Right to Information Act, No. 12 of 2016 as the basis for refusal. Section 5(1)(g) of the Act states that a request for access to information “shall be refused, where … the information is required to be kept confidential by reason of the existence of a fiduciary relationship.”
Mr Rajasinghe is a serving officer of the Sri Lanka Army and a member of the Army’s Audit Division. His name had been submitted to the CC by Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya during its meeting held on December 18 last year. During the CC meeting, chaired by Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne, only four members voted in support of the President’s nominee, while five voted against.
All three civil society members, along with Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Ajith P. Perera, voted against the nominee. Prime Minister Amarasuriya and House Leader Bimal Rathnayake, along with MPs M. Athambawa and S. Shritharan, voted for the nominee.
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