Siriwardena and Another v. The Attorney General – sllr 1998 volume 2 page 222

In the case between Siriwardena and Another (Plaintiffs) and The Attorney-General (Defendant), the court addressed the issue of the indivisibility of a witness’s credibility in criminal proceedings. The court held that the identical testimony of a sole eyewitness cannot be accepted against some accused and disregarded against others when the evidence remains unchanged. This reaffirmed the principle that the credibility of a witness must be uniformly applied if the testimony is identical across those accused. The decision relied on precedents such as Baksh v. The Queen and R. v. Margulas, underlining that selective acceptance of the same body of evidence is impermissible. The impact of the decision was to quash the convictions and sentences of the 2nd and 3rd accused, emphasizing the unifor