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Filing a fundamental rights application in Supreme Court, death row prisoner Mohammad Haniffa Praeem Nawas said the decision to revive executions in Sri Lanka were allegedly made in secret, with an utter lack of transparency and accountability.
The decision was arbitrary and violative of the country’s constitution, the petition claimed. Attorney-at-Law Kavindu Hewa Geeganage filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of condemned prisoner who is currently serving his sentence at the Welikada prison.
Pointing to the arbitrary nature of the selection of those marked for execution, the petition states that due to the lack of transparency in the process it is not discernible why some prisoners have their sentences commuted and why some do not.
“The purported selection of specific individuals to impose the death penalty/capital punishment, is arbitrary, unreasonable, and made on no identifiable criteria, and without any justifications for the same,” the petition notes adding that this amounts to “impermissible randomness” of such process and the purported selection appears to have been carried out contrary to the law and the constitution.
The petitioner on behalf of the death row prisoner contends that to lift the moratorium on the death penalty after holding them in custody in an agony of suspense is tantamount to inhuman punishment.
Geeganage’s petition was filed through attorney at law Gowry Shangary Thavarasha, and cites the Attorney General, Minister of Justice and Prison Reforms Thalatha Atukorale, Commissioner General of Prisons T.M.J.W. Thennakoon, Welikada Prison Superintendent T.G. Uduwara, Secretary to the President Udaya Ranjith Seneviratne, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and Bar Association President Kalinga Indatissa as respondents.
Petitioner states the Petitioner is aware that Sri Lanka has had a moratorium on the death penalty at least since 1976, and there has been no capital punishment carried out since then. He states that after the last execution in 1976, successive Presidents of Sri Lanka have refrained from placing their signatures on the death warrants, without which condemned prisoners cannot be executed in the prisons.
He claims although the Courts of Law sentenced persons to death, successive Presidents have periodically commuted death sentences to life or other terms of imprisonment.
He states that on 6 October 2015, an Adjournment Motion was tabled in Parliament titled “Revival of Death Penalty”.
However, immediately thereafter, the then Minister of Justice publicly stated that the moratorium on the death penalty would continue, he points out.
Therefore, such was an unambiguous representation and assurance by the State and the Executive that such moratorium would in fact continue, he adds.
On 14 September, 2015, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressing the General Debate of the 30th Session of the UN Human Rights Council specifically stated that the Government was committed to “(…) maintain the moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its ultimate abolition”, he underlines.
On 1 January 2016, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka recommended that the President abolish the death penalty, he states.
He states that in June 2016, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Saaraweera and the then Minister of Justice Dr. Wijedasa Rajapakse participated in the International Conference against the Death Penalty (ICPM) in Oslo, Norway and Sri Lanka committed itself to moving forward in the abolitionist process.
He states that attempting to lift the moratorium on death penalty in light of such is manifestly absurd, arbitrary, capricious and irrational and no rational nexus exists between such decision and any purported object thereof.
He states there has recently been an anti-drug overture with the backing of the State, and the President has indicated his wish to reintroduce the imposition of the death penalty.
He emphasises that maintaining the moratorium on carrying out the death penalty is vital for Sri Lanka to ensure continued support and collaboration with foreign drug enforcement agencies.
He states here has been no transparency regarding the purported executions to be carried out.
He says there is no clarity as to the number of people sentenced to death, the identities or the date(s) of execution. It was reported that the death sentence was to be carried out on at least thirteen prisoners. Thereafter, however it was reported that the President had signed death warrants for four convicts.
Commissioner General of Prison is reported to have said that he has not been informed of any decision to carry out executions, the Petition states.
The petition states that as a convention, prior to the moratorium on the death penalty in Sri Lanka, there was an inveterate practice; a) of giving fourteen days’ notice to the condemned prisoner prior to the imposition of the death penalty; b) of granting an opportunity to the condemned prisoner to seek clemency; c) of commuting the death sentence on the recommendations of the Minister of Justice, if either the Trial Judge or the Attorney General recommended that the death sentence should not be carried out.
