A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, May 17, 2017
EU Grants GSP Plus Despite Conditions Not Being Met
This
is despite the Government not conforming to two conditions that the EU
had earlier said, should be demonstrated before the suspension of GSP
Plus was lifted. These two conditions related to the public releasing of
an internationally compliant draft Counter-Terrorism Act (CTA) and a
draft Amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, both of which had
to be tabled before Parliament.
In both these cases, the leaked versions of the drafts revealed significant problems with their contents. In the case of the draft CTA, the leaked version by the Sunday Times recently indicated that the offence of espionage had been surreptitiously slipped in while omitting the term ‘espionage.’
The
draft CTA terrorizes the ‘gathering of confidential information’ if it
adversely affects public security and contradicts the Right to
Information Act of 2016. Sri Lanka’s RTI Act, hailed as the third best
in the world, has several restrictions on giving of information
including national security but leaves out ‘public security’ as a ground
on which a denial can be based due to the unclear meaning of that
term. In addition the CTA
terrorizes any person who writes or speaks in a way that harms ‘unity’
despite this term also being unclear as legal experts have pointed out.
Where
the CCP amendment is concerned, this still leaves discretion in the
hands of the police to refuse immediate legal counsel to suspects.
Former Secretary to the Ministry of Justice Nihal Jayawickrama called the draft ‘horrendous’
saying that he felt sick after reading it. He professed doubt that this
draft could have had the involvement of Sri Lankan experts. Prominent
legal analyst and a member of Sri Lanka’s Right to Information
Commission Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena fiercely critiqued the
Cabinet approved CTA to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA),
pointing out that this proposed a ‘cure that was far worse than the
disease.’
The
CTA’s clauses that give the power to issue detention orders to ‘common
or garden path Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGs) advised by the
Officer-in-Charge (OIC)’ was pointed to be a clear incentive to torture
of detainees. Blisteringly critical of ‘blinkered negotiations’ so far, Pinto-Jayawardena
asked as to how any faith could be placed in effective ‘monitoring’ to
ensure revisions to the draft even though this had been promised by the
EU through a Working Committee after the additional tariff preference
was granted.
GSP Plus was suspended in 2010 under the Rajapaksa Presidency after an Experts Report castigated
Sri Lanka’s Rule of Law record. For example, the report found that
though a domestic law prohibiting torture was enacted in 1994, this has
had little impact due to bad investigations, lackadaisical prosecutions
and a legal system plagued with delays and other failures.
It
was also concluded that the judicial and administrative infrastructure
was neither adequate nor effective in regard to providing a remedy for
violations of rights. The suspension had adverse consequences as the EU
had been Sri Lanka’s biggest export market accounting for nearly
one-third of the country’s global exports with apparel being key.
Announcing
the lifting of the suspension today, the EU stated in a press release
that ‘this is also a vote of confidence from the European Union that the
Sri Lankan Government will maintain the progress it has made in
implementing the international conventions. At the same time, no one is
pretending that the situation is perfect. The process of replacing the
Prevention of Terrorism Act still needs to be completed.’