Par­lia­ment has re­fused to dis­close ed­u­ca­tional qual­i­fi­ca­tions of min­is­ters and Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans (MPs) on the ba­sis it would be an ‘in­va­sion of pri­vacy’, The Sunday Times reported.

Re­spond­ing to a Right to In­for­ma­tion (RTI) ap­pli­ca­tion filed by the Sun­day Times, Par­lia­ment’s As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­eral and In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer Tikiri Jay­atilleke said: “Ed­u­ca­tional qual­i­fi­ca­tions re­late to per­sonal in­for­ma­tion, the dis­clo­sure of which has no re­la­tion­ship to any public ac­tiv­ity or in­ter­est or which would cause un­war­ranted in­va­sion of the pri­vacy of the in­di­vid­ual un­less the larger public in­ter­est jus­ti­fies. The dis­clo­sure of such in­for­ma­tion or the per­son con­cerned has con­sented in writ­ing to such dis­clo­sure.”

The of­fi­cer also said that ac­cord­ing to the Sri Lanka Con­sti­tu­tion’s Ar­ti­cle 90, no ref­er­ences had been made to the ed­u­ca­tional qual­i­fi­ca­tions of an MP. The only qual­i­fi­ca­tion to be elected as an MP, ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, is that he or she should be an elec­tor.