COLOMBO, Aug. 11 -- President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is scheduled to meet representatives of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) on Wednesday (12) to discuss the government's controversial proposal to increase the retirement age of judges.

The meeting, scheduled for 1:00 p.m. at the Presidential Secretariat, follows strong opposition from the BASL, which has unanimously rejected the proposed changes to the judges' retirement age and warned of their potential impact on judicial independence.

The government has gazetted the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, which proposes increasing the mandatory retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67 and that of Court of Appeal judges from 63 to 65.

The amendment also prop...