Untitled - International Commission of Jurists

ecommendation to this effect by the Kokkadicholai Commission (some of whom
were judicial officers) is disappointingly absent in their report.
4.3. The Presidential COIs into Disappearances (1991-1993)
The 1991-93 Presidential Commissions concluded hearings in six of the cases
accepted for investigation, which were all enforced disappearances linked to police
custody. The Commissioners had refrained from examining enforced disappearances
linked to military custody on the basis that this ‘would be difficult in a context of
‘armed conflict’. 355 Reports were submitted to the President but were not released to
the public.
A case was filed only in one instance in consequence of commission findings,
alleging the involvement of Assistant Superintendent of Police K. Sugathadasa
concerning the enforced disappearance of police constable Basnayake in January
1991. The Magistrate discharged the accused and stated that he was doing so on the
basis of the findings of the 1991-93 Presidential Commission. As pointed out by one
sceptical commentator:
[T]his gave rise to a curious situation - of a man being accused and then
discharged on the basis of the same findings; since the PCIIRP reports are not
available to the public, this curiosity is one that cannot yet be satisfied. 356
The legitimacy of the 1991-93 Presidential Commissions was clearly undermined by
the political context of its establishment and functioning. Its findings of fact were of
insufficient value to propel effective investigations and prosecutions.
4.4. The 1994/1998 Disappearances Commissions 357
The response of the Government to the UN Committee Against Torture in pursuance
of the periodic reporting obligation under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), 358
details the most recent official data in relation to prosecutions undertaken consequent
to the recommendations of the following commissions/bodies: namely, the 1994
Southern, Western and Sabaragamuwa Disappearances Commission; the 1994
Central, North Western, North Central and Uva Disappearances Commission 359 ; the
1998 All-Island Disappearances Commission and the 1996 Board of Investigation into
Complaints of Disappearances in Jaffna Peninsula. 360
355 ibid.
356 Abeysekera, Charles, op. cit.
357 As prosecutions relevant to the Embilipitiya Case and the Bindunuwewa case did not strictly follow
as a consequence of the findings of the relevant Commissions of Inquiry, the prosecutions in both cases
are examined later under examination of prosecutions other than those initiated as a result of the reports
of Commissions of Inquiry.
358 United Nations Committee against Torture: Sri Lanka, CAT/C/LKA/CO/2/Add.1 (Comments by
Government of Sri Lanka on the Concluding Observations of the CAT Committee), 20.02.2007; See
also United Nations Committee against Torture, Second Periodic Report, CAT/C/48/Add.2,
06.08.2004.
359 The omission of data relating to prosecutions consequent to the findings of the 1994
Northern/Eastern Disappearances Commission is disturbing in this regard.
360 The last mentioned body is a Board of Investigation that was appointed by President Chandrika
Kumaratunge in 1996 pursuant to persistent demands being made to her to constitute a Commission of
Inquiry to investigate the disappearances in Jaffna during the mid nineties (which was during the time
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