Sri Lanka, July 31 -- Claiming that various factions can have different opinions when constitutional amendments or amendment to certain Acts are brought, Health Minister Nalinda Jayatissa reiterated yesterday that the government has a mandate to provide relief to people by reducing backlog of cases in courts.

He told reporters that there are large numbers of pending cases in all courts across magistrate's Courts to the Supreme Court.

The Minister said the government is planning to take several steps to ease the backlog of cases in courts which include increasing number of courts, filling vacancies in the courts and extending the retirement age of judges by two years.

"No one should panic about it. I wonder how the independence of the j...