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VII. Emergency Regulations
In August 2005, after the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar,
the government of then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga imposed Emergency
Regulations drawn from the Emergency Regulations of 2000. 133 Long a controversial
measure in Sri Lanka, the regulations granted the security forces sweeping powers of
arrest and detention, allowing the authorities to hold a person without charge based
on vaguely defined accusations for up to 12 months.
Since then, subsequent Sri Lankan governments have detained an undetermined
number of people reaching into the hundreds under the regulations, mostly young
Tamil men suspected of being LTTE members or supporters. The vast majority have
been arrested over the past 18 months. On June 18 Human Rights Watch asked the
government how many people it had arrested under the Emergency Regulations, the
charges against them, and the locations of their detention. The government did not
provide the requested information, saying the figures were being tabulated by the
police. As in other cases noted above, it should have been possible for the
government to provide at least some information.
History of abuse
Sri Lanka has a longstanding experience with emergency rule: some form of
emergency regulations has been in place almost continuously since 1971.
Under Sri Lanka’s Public Security Ordinance (PSO) of 1947, 134 the president can
declare a state of emergency. The law offers no possibility to challenge the existence
133 Article 155 of the Sri Lankan constitution, on public security, empowers the president to declare a state of emergency. The
parliament has 14 days to approve the measure and then must renew the state of emergency every 30 days thereafter.
134 Public Security Ordinance (PSO): an ordinance to provide for the enactment of emergency regulations or the adoption of
other measures in the interests of the public security and the preservation of public order and for the maintenance of supplies
essential to the life of the community, 16 June 1947.
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