Untitled - International Commission of Jurists

arrests. In consequence, most of these statements are of no use to either the
complainants or to us in identifying the person or institution responsible for
the arrests, they reveal police complicity if not in the disappearance, at least in
attempts to cover up. Having heard the evidence of hundreds of complainants
and read the statements recorded by the police in Sinhalese that they had
signed, we have no doubt that the distortion was deliberate. 457
A further factor is that, owing to the excessive time that lapses prior to the
commencement of the investigation, the police and services personnel implicated in
the case have ample time to falsify relevant documentation. All these actions amount
to dereliction of duty and grave misconduct according to the cumulative effect of the
Establishments Code, as well as internal departmental orders of the police 458 and the
Public Complaints procedures of the National Police Commission. 459 However, no
action is taken against transgressing officers on a consistent and regular basis.
This pattern establishes a clear need for institutional and legal reform. The reform
must address the way in which the first information report to police, the condition
precedent to any inquiry in regard to an alleged offence prescribed by law, 460 has been
rendered nugatory, resulting in the bypassing of the subsequent steps prescribed by
law. Without the proper filing of the first information, police avoid their concomitant
duty to require attendance of (other) persons able to give information and their
examination. 461 The law must be amended to hold police accountable in the penal law
itself, as opposed to other non-binding codes of conduct, if refusal or reluctance to
record the first information is shown.
But even such a reform would not fully address the institutional and normative
problem. The process of investigation, as the law now stands, would still be in the
control of the police. Given that there is typically a refusal even in the first instance to
even record a first information report, the police are unlikely to be relied on to
conduct thorough investigations. In many of the cases at issue in this report, ordinary
457 Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Report of the Committee on Disappearances in the Jaffna
Region, October 2003, Colombo.
458 For example, Police Departmental Orders No. A. 20, No. A. 3, and No. E. 21, which imposes
rigorous duties on police officers in terms of arrests, searches, detention as well as on officers in charge
in respect of monitoring the police stations under their authority.
459 Gazette No 1480/8 – 2007, 17.01. 2007. Offences listed in Segment B of the Schedule to these Rules
of Procedure detail the nature of complaints that may be referred for inquiry by the NPC to the IGP,
who is required to conduct an impartial inquiry by independent officer/s - Section 15 of the Rules of
Procedure. These complaints relate inter alia to assault/intimidation/abuse/threat, refusal/postponement
to record a statement required to be made to the police, making deliberate distortions in statements
recorded and miscarriage of justice resulting from misconduct by a police officer. The findings of the
IGP are forwarded to the NPC. Offences listed in Segment C of Schedule One concern undue delay in
making available certified copies of statements made to the police, discouraging complainants and
witnesses from making statements, use of abusive words, threats or intimidation to complainants and
witnesses and inaction and partiality by the police in taking action on complaints made. Section 16 of
the Rules of Procedure stipulate that these complaints be referred to a DIG or SSP of a Division in the
provinces for impartial investigation by one or more independent officers. Though these procedures are
defective in that they rely on the IGP and senior police officers to conduct investigations into the
complaints, they did constitute an official acknowledgement that the conduct of the police in this
regard needs to be remedied. However, with the lapsing of the NPC in mid 2009, even this mild
supervision has been dispensed with.
460 Section 109(1) of Code of Criminal Procedure Act, No. 15 of 1979 (as amended).
461 ibid, Section 109(6) and Section 110 of the said Act.
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