Laws without trust

The Government has had a busy legislative season. In two months it has gazetted the Protection of the State from Terrorism (PSTA) Bill, tabled the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and pushed the Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Bill through Parliament without a division. Each is presented as reform. Each also asks citizens to hand more power, or more discretion, to institutions whose record gives them little reason to do so.

On 25 October, 29-year-old Ishara Harshakumara was arrested at Pitipana Junction and taken to the Homagama Police Station. He died in hospital. The Police first blamed a sudden illness; his family say he was beaten. The Crime Branch OIC has since been arrested and remanded, and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) says preliminary findings suggest officers may not have followed its custody guidelines.

These are not isolated lapses. Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananda Wijepala has said nearly 1,000 officers have been dismissed in recent years over links to organised crime figures, drug traffickers and smugglers. In July, intelligence agencies were reported to be investigating nearly 200 more suspected of taking underworld payments.

The problem reaches the top. As this newspaper reported, on 21 October Gampaha Magistrate Bandula Gunarathna directed that case files concerning Inspector General of Police (IGP) Priyantha Weerasooriya be forwarded to the President of the Court of Appeal to initiate contempt of court proceedings, after the Police failed to issue a court-ordered nationwide circular against baseless prosecutions. The Magistrate said the partial response appeared to be an attempt to mislead the court. This is the IGP tasked with investigating the Homagama death.

Against this backdrop, the Organised Crimes Bill asks the public to trust the same force with considerably more. Amnesty International says it would make confessions extracted under duress admissible, allow detention for up to two years without trial, permit warrantless searches and access to telecom data without a court order, bar the media from reporting court proceedings, and place the burden on the accused to prove they were tortured. Such powers could shield the very bad apples the Government admits are in the ranks, by letting evidence obtained in custody stand, keeping proceedings out of view and making abuse harder to prove. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has urged Parliament not to fast-track this Bill or the PSTA.

The PSTA would, to its credit, repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1979. Yet the UN human rights office has urged a substantive redraft, and critics note it closely resembles the 2023 Anti-Terrorism Bill the National People’s Power (NPP) opposed and challenged in court. The anti-corruption amendments, now law, cut the other way: Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) argued they weaken the asset declaration regime and remove judicial oversight of decisions not to prosecute. The result is more power at the coercive end of the State and less scrutiny at the top.

Nor is the crisis confined to police stations. In July, two days of fighting at the Negombo Prison left 10 prison officials and 20 prisoners dead, and riots at Mahara, the New Magazine Prison and Kuruwita followed within weeks. Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara, who answered to Parliament for Negombo and whose Ministry published the PSTA, should step down. A resignation would be the clearest sign that the Government’s commitment to reform extends beyond the statute book.

The Government cannot legislate its way out of a trust deficit, and it cannot afford to wait. It should withdraw the Organised Crimes Bill for genuine consultation, publish the Homagama findings, and show that police links to the underworld are being broken rather than merely transferred. Laws are only as good as those who enforce them. Right now, the public has reason to doubt both.