The cause of action for his FR petition will be that the salary and allowances he is being paid are against the law.
Clause 154 of the constitution defines the auditor general position, which also says parliament should decide the AG’s salary, even if the appointee has been an employee of the AG’s Department or an outsider.
After deciding so, parliament can never reduce the AG’s salary, which goes onto establish the independence of the position.
However, only the 38th AG, S. Swarnajothi, appointed on 21 Janury 2007, had been paid a parliament-decided salary, which was a Rs. 54,000 basic salary.
Wijesinghe was appointed the 40th AG on 30 November 2015 by the Constitutional Council (CC), and his basic salary is only Rs. 48,000.
Since his salary was not decided by parliament, Wijesinghe informed the secretary general of parliament (SGP) in writing after one month in office that his salary be legalized.
The SGP has referred the matter to the CC.
However, the CC is empowered to appoint member to certain top positions in the public service and to independent commissions only, and has no powers to decide their salaries.
Therefore, the CC informed the PSC that there is no need to decide the AG’s salary again, and in turn referred the matter to the prime minister.
However, the PM insisted that the AG’s salary scale cannot be over that of a ministry secretary.
However, as per clause 19 of the constitution, the AG’s is not a position in the public service, like that of a ministry secretary.
The same clause places the AG’s position after the chief justice, who draws a basic salary of more than Rs. 150,000.
Also, before being appointed the AG, Wijesinghe held for nearly five years the position of director general of the Sri Lanka Audit Standard Supervisory Board, which carries a basic salary of more than Rs. 300,000.
Legal experts note that a citizen can seek court redress on the basis of a violation of the power of finances of parliament which has people’s supremacy, if it does not decide, as it should, the salary of a certain position.
Wijesinghe has come under criticism by certain top government politicians after he based his conclusions on international audit standards when dealing with the annual audits of the Finance Ministry in 2015.
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