Untitled - International Commission of Jurists

assembly and association of trade unions were severely curtailed. After the
insurrection, about fourteen thousand people were arrested. Charges of conspiracy to
wage war against the Queen, ‘conspiracy to overawe by means of criminal force’ the
Government of Ceylon, waging war in various places in Ceylon and abetment of the
waging of such war were served on the suspects.
A particular feature of this period was the enactment of the Criminal Justice
Commission Act No. 14 of 1972 (‘the CJC Act’). The drafting of the CJC Act
commenced in 1971 and was assented to by the Governor-General on 8 April, 1972, a
little over a year after the insurrection. None of the several thousands in custody were
brought to trial until the CJC Act had been passed. The principal purpose of the Act
was two fold: to deal with the persons involved in the insurrection and with persons
who committed offences in relation to currency or foreign exchange on such a scale as
to endanger the national economy. In the exercise of these two functions, the CJC sat
as the Criminal Justice Commission (Insurgency) and Criminal Justice Commission
(Foreign Exchange).
The CJC was brought into being on the basis that the practice and procedure of the
ordinary courts were inadequate “to administer Criminal Justice for the purpose of
securing trial and punishment of the persons who committed such offences.” 21 It was
established by a warrant of the Governor-General being of the opinion that the
offences against the State committed either during a rebellion or insurrection or
exchange control offence could not be dealt with by the normal laws. 22 Section 11
stipulated that an inquiry before a Commission was to be free from the formalities and
technicalities of the rules of procedure ordinarily applicable to a court of law and was
to be conducted in a manner not inconsistent with the principles of natural justice.
Under Section 25, the findings made or sentence imposed by a Commission were
decreed to be final and conclusive and could not be called into question “in any court
or tribunal, whether by way of action, application in revision, appeal, writ or
otherwise.” Section 11(2) (g) permitted the admission of a report of a person
pertaining to the committal of the offences in question and made in the course of his
official duties, the only restriction being that the report should not contain specific
reference to the suspect on trial. 23
The provisions of Section 11 opened the door to the introduction in evidence, as
substantive evidence, of confessionary statements made to police officers by suspects.
This constituted a radical departure from the normal law, which had prohibited the
leading of evidence of statements made by a suspect to a police officer that even
suggested an inference of a confession. 24 The provisions of the CJC Act evoked
criticism for politicizing the judicial system. 25
21 Criminal Justice Commission Act, No. 14 of 1972, Section 2(1)(b).
22 ibid, Section 2(1)(a).
23 However, at the inquiry the authors of these reports were called as witnesses and after being called
upon to read their reports before the Commission, were subjected to cross’examination.
24 Evidence Ordinance, Sections 24, 25(1) and (2) and 26(1) and (2) shut out, in the normal course of
events, three categories of confessions: confessions caused by an inducement, threat or promise,
confessions made to a police officer, a forest officer or an excise officer and confessions made by any
person while in the custody of these three categories of officers. The old cases went so far in their
liberal reasoning as to affirm that the concept of ‘police custody’ does not ‘necessarily connote the
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