Untitled - International Commission of Jurists

enforced disappearances were reported in Jaffna consequent to the security forces
regaining control of the peninsula from the LTTE. 38
Commissions of inquiry appointed by President Kumaratunge to inquire into the July
1983 communal riots, the torture chamber at Batalanda and the widespread
disappearances of the post-1988 period came to naught, 39 despite exhaustive and timeconsuming
investigations. More controversially, Special Presidential Commissions of
Inquiry 40 were appointed by President Kumaratunge to inquire into the assassinations
of political leaders and military leaders during the previous UNP regime, including
the posthumously promoted Lt. General Denzil Kobbekaduwa and Minister of
National Security Lalith Athulathmudali. Many of these commissions, though headed
by judges, concluded that elements of the UNP itself were responsible for the
assassinations. The weak evidentiary and legal basis of these findings gave rise to
serious doubts. 41 Similarly impugned 42 were the findings of another Special
Presidential Commission of Inquiry in regard to the 1988 assassination of Vijaya
Kumaratunge. 43
Investigations into mass graves at Suriyakande, Duriappah Stadium, Chemmani also
floundered, reinforcing the climate of impunity. The only serious prosecutions led to
unsatisfactory convictions of junior army officers as, for example, in the Krishanthi
Kumaraswamy and the Embilipitiya schoolchildren cases. The past pattern of human
rights violations recurred without effective inquiry or investigation. No commission
was appointed to investigate the enforced disappearances that occurred in the mid-
1990s in the Jaffna peninsula. The massacre of rehabilitation camp inmates at
Bindunuwewa in late October 2000 did lead to a commission of inquiry but its
findings had little impact on the legal process, which culminated in the wholesale
acquittal of the accused (on appeal), including police officers whose conviction for
culpable inaction had earlier been determined by the lower courts. The reports of
38 United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Report of the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (25-29 October 1999), E/CN.4/2000/64/Add.1,
21.12.1999; presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights at its 56 th sessions, March-April 2000.
39 see later analysis of prosecutions emanating from the findings of the 1994/1998 Disappearances
Commissions.
40 The Special Presidential Commissions of Inquiry are appointed in terms of the Special Presidential
Commissions of Inquiry Law (SPCI Law) No. 7 of 1978 (as amended) (‘the SPCI Law’) which is
different from the Commissions of Inquiry Act No. 17 of 1948 which is under examination in this
report. The SPCI Law gives Commissions appointed under it authority to determine and report whether
any person is guilty of any act of political victimisation, misuse or abuse of power, corruption or
fraudulent act, in relation to any court or tribunal or any public body or in relation to the administration
of any law or administration of justice and in those circumstances, to recommend whether such person
should be made subject to civic disability (Section 9 (1)). That recommendation can result in the
Parliament taking steps to impose civic disability or expel that person from Parliament if he is a MP
(Article 81). The SPCI Law has been consistently and justly criticized as violating basic rules of
evidence and fair procedure, resulting in persons being subjected to kangaroo trials. A number of police
officers who were interdicted and politicians who were arrested in consequence of the findings of these
commissions were able to successfully challenge the interdictions and arrests in the Supreme Court on
the basis inter alia, that the action taken was arbitrary and devoid of natural justice.
41 Pinto-Jayawardena, Kishali, ‘Lalith Athulathmudali Assassination – A Report and its Discrediting,’
Moot Point, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Legal Review, 1999, at p. 29.
42 ibid, at p. 31. See also, Hoole, Rajan, op. cit, at p. 295.
43 A charismatic actor cum politician and founder of an SLFP breakaway party, the SLMP, together
with his wife and later President of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005, Chandrika Kumaratunge, daughter of
SWRD and Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
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