Two additional years on the bench might seem an unlikely cause for a constitutional confrontation. Yet Sri Lanka’s proposed Twenty-Second Amendment has brought the government into conflict with opposition parties, lawyers and civil society organisations. It would raise the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67 and that of Court of Appeal judges from 63 to 65. The government says retaining experienced judges will help clear cases. Its critics ask a different question: what happens when a government with a two-thirds parliamentary majority changes the tenure of judges already in office?

That question reaches beyond the merits of retirement at 65 or 67. Judicial independence depends on judges knowing the conditions of their service in advance. Extending those conditions while particular judges are serving may benefit them without any explicit bargain or instruction. It can still create the appearance that judicial tenure is something the government may adjust when circumstances suit it. For an institution whose authority rests heavily on public confidence, that appearance matters.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government presents the amendment as a practical response to delays and mounting case backlogs. Keeping experienced judges for longer could preserve expertise. But two additional years for a limited number of senior judges cannot, by themselves, resolve vacancies, slow procedures or inadequate court capacity. The distance between the scale of the problem and the proposed remedy has helped turn an administrative argument into a political one.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has challenged the measure on constitutional grounds. Its objection centres on whether altering the retirement conditions of serving superior court judges affects the independence of the judiciary, and thus the sovereignty of the people from which judicial power derives. If it does, a two-thirds vote in Parliament may not be enough: the amendment could also require approval in a referendum. The Supreme Court has heard petitions concerning the bill, making the judges of the country’s highest court participants in deciding the constitutional rules under which their own institution operates.

Sri Lanka has seen constitutional amendments used repeatedly to redraw the balance of power. The Seventeenth Amendment sought to restrain executive discretion; the Eighteenth restored much of it. The Nineteenth strengthened checks on the presidency, the Twentieth weakened them, and the Twenty-First restored some of those safeguards after the 2022 crisis. Each turn was presented as a response to the country’s needs. Together, they show how readily institutional design can follow the priorities of the government of the day.

The proposed Twenty-Second Amendment is narrower than those earlier struggles over presidential authority. That does not make it less sensitive. This time the issue is the tenure of the judiciary itself, including whether the new retirement ages would apply to judges appointed under the existing rules. A government need not seek to control a court for such a change to create a damaging precedent. Future governments might learn that judicial service conditions, too, are open to revision whenever they command enough votes.

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has portrayed the measure as a threat to the separation of powers, and protests are planned to coincide with the parliamentary debate scheduled for September 24. Opposition parties have their own political reasons to challenge Dissanayake. The objections from lawyers and professional organisations are harder to dismiss as ordinary parliamentary theatre. They concern the durability of the boundary between those who govern and those who must be free to judge the government’s actions.

The government has a legitimate interest in reducing delays in the courts. It also has the parliamentary strength to pursue reforms. What it has yet to establish is why changing the tenure of serving senior judges is necessary to solve that problem, or why the reform could not be designed to remove doubt about its effect on current officeholders.

Sri Lanka’s immediate question is whether Parliament alone can enact the amendment. The larger test is whether a dominant government is willing to accept limits when its proposed solution touches the independence of another branch of the state. Two years may be a modest extension to a judicial career. As a constitutional precedent, they could last considerably longer.