Sri Lanka's Supreme Court cleared the final legal hurdle on Tuesday to evict former presidents from their stately mansions and strip them of their luxury cars, bodyguards and pensions.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's leftist government has tabled a bill that would repeal a 1986 law granting lavish state housing and other entitlements to former presidents and their widows.
The bill is part of Dissanayake's effort to impose more official austerity after the country's worst-ever economic crisis. Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne told parliament on Tuesday that the highest court had rejected all six petitions challenging the bill.
The court "has ruled that the bill can be passed with a simple majority in parliament," Wickramaratne told the assembly, where the government enjoys a comfortable two-thirds majority. The decision followed former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa's refusal to vacate a ritzy home in the capital Colombo despite repeated requests. His party was one of the petitioners against the bill.
Under the 1986 law, former presidents were also entitled to luxury cars with government-supplied fuel, secretarial services and security personnel.
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