Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court overturns pardon of hardline Buddhist monk Galagodaatte Gnanasara

Court reverses presidential clemency

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has overturned the presidential pardon granted to hardline Buddhist monk Galagodaatte Gnanasara and ordered him to serve the remainder of a six-year prison sentence, the BBC reported. Former president Maithripala Sirisena pardoned Gnanasara in 2019 after he had served less than a year. The new ruling is significant because it subjects a politically sensitive use of presidential clemency to judicial review and restores a sentence imposed for contempt of court.

The case began with courtroom intimidation

Gnanasara was convicted in 2018 after disrupting a court hearing and intimidating Sandya Eknaligoda, whose husband, cartoonist and journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, disappeared in 2010. The hearing concerned military intelligence personnel accused in connection with that disappearance. The contempt case was therefore tied to a wider struggle by families seeking answers about enforced disappearances. By reinstating the sentence, the Supreme Court addressed the pardon itself rather than resolving the underlying disappearance investigation.

A prominent nationalist figure

The monk has been a prominent voice in the Bodu Bala Sena movement, which presents itself as defending Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority. Critics and rights groups have associated the movement with campaigns against Muslim and other minority communities. Gnanasara also received a separate nine-month sentence in 2025 for remarks judged to have insulted Islam and promoted religious hostility. The cases have made him a recurring symbol in disputes over nationalism, minority protection and political patronage.

Accountability remains contested

Sri Lanka continues to face domestic and international pressure over unresolved disappearances, wartime abuses and intimidation of people seeking accountability. A joint statement delivered at the UN Human Rights Council on September 8 called for credible progress on human rights, justice and reconciliation. That broader record matters here because Sandya Eknaligoda’s pursuit of information about her husband has continued for years. The pardon’s cancellation removes one obstacle to accountability but does not answer what happened to him.

What follows the judgment

The immediate issue is enforcement: prison authorities must calculate the unserved portion of the original sentence and carry out the court’s order. The judgment may also influence future challenges to presidential pardons by clarifying that clemency is not beyond constitutional scrutiny. For victims’ families, its importance will depend on whether it is followed by progress in the disappearance case and stronger protection for witnesses. A restored contempt sentence is a judicial action, but it is not a substitute for resolving the alleged abduction.