Mr. Wijeratne was responsible for crushing the 1988/90 JVP insurrection. Sixteen lawyers were done to death by marauding gunmen. Nonetheless the Bar Association was unshaken and stood firm and fought the tyranny that oppressed the people. Eventually, Mr. Wijeratne had to eat humble pie. At the request of the President of the Bar Association, Mr. Wijeratne apologised profusely to the Bar Association.

But today, almost every week, we find either the executive, or the Police, paying scant respect to the legal profession. Though there is no emergency rule and the country is passing through a phase of peace and tranquillity unknown in the recent past, confrontations between the police and the members of the Bar are increasing by the day by day. The errant police officers seem to go scot free.

It was only a few days ago that Nimal Jayasinghe, a member of the Mawanella Branch of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka complained of an incident that would shake the credibility of the directives and other circulars issued by the IGP.

Mr. Jayasinghe was retained by a suspect in a murder case. The suspect had told the lawyer that the police had gone in search of him to his hometown at Ragama and he feared that if he surrendered, the Police would obtain a confession by torture and thereby implicate him with the alleged murder. He sought Mr. Jayasinghe's help and pleaded with him to surrender him to the Magistrate.

The Mawanella Police had filed a case (No: 64/2002) and arrested the brother of the suspect and remanded him pending investigations.

Mr. Jayasinghe brought the suspect to the Mawanella Magistrate's Court and filed a motion in Court and surrendered the suspect to the Magistrate in the presence of the Mawanella OIC. The lawyer informed the Magistrate that the suspect Dinesh Prasantha Silva was wanted by the Mawanella Police in connection with a murder. His brother Janaka Mahesh Silva was in remand and police wanted the Magistrate to take the suspect into custody and remand him.

The OIC Mawanella Police, one Saman Sigera, made a strange submission to Court. He said their inquiry centred on an unidentified body of a woman and the JMO report which said she had been killed by strangulation. When the news about the body was made public through the media the Police received information that the suspect was evading arrest. Then he said that he had received information that some other person was to be produced in Court as the suspect and as such the suspect was trying to mislead the Police and especially the Court about the identity of the suspect.

He said that they also had information that the suspect was trying to deceive Court by surrendering an innocent man as a suspect with a forged identity card. When questioned by Court whether the person in the dock was wanted by the Police, Mr. Sigera said that he could not be sure whether he was the suspect and that therefore did not want the Court to remand him. The lawyer's plea that he was the suspect wanted by the Police and that the Police had come in search of him to Ragama and even questioned his wife was of no avail. The Magistrate having recorded the statement of the OIC discharged the suspect.

When the Police want to interrogate a suspect it often results in torture with third degree methods being used to extract confessions.

Our Constitution and the Supreme Court in many judgements have protected the liberty of the subject. We are signatories to international covenants against torture. We often hear the Supreme Court ordering compensation to torture victims. In numerous cases, the Supreme Court have ordered Police officers concerned to pay the compensation from their personal funds. But torture continues unabated.

What happened at Mawanella on July 22 was a new method used by police to mislead court and pervert justice. It opens a new chapter on the nature of the power wielded and misused by police to degrade the judicial system and its officers. It reveals a complete lack of respect towards the Courts.

After the suspect was discharged, the lawyer left for another Court leaving the suspect in the Court. The Magistrate adjourned for lunch. Then two policemen in civilian clothes entered the Court House, removed the suspect forcibly from the Court House. This was witnessed by members of the public, jail guards, lawyers and other police officers. He was taken to the Police Station.

Later he was produced and remanded as a suspect in the same case, though it was only a few minutes before that the OIC Mawanella Police loudly as ever proclaimed to the Magistrate to be heard by everyone that the suspect who the Police had subsequently abducted was not wanted in the same case. By his action the OIC Mawanella has humiliated the legal profession.

This incident clearly demonstrates the manner in which a Police Officer could manipulate the system when it suits him.

He would have earned the encomiums of his superiors for having been brave enough to abduct a suspect from the Court House. Even during the darkest days of the JVP insurrection where bodies were littered all over, Police would not dare abduct a suspect or even arrest a person against whom a warrant had been issued from the well of the Court.

The Temple of Justice provides protection not only to the victims of crime but also to the accused and suspects. The lawyers, especially the junior lawyers, were aghast at the manner in which the Police had taken complete control of the Court House and how they had belittled the legal profession.

The Mawanella Branch of the Bar Association passed a resolution unanimously condemning this incident. The matter was reported to the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. The Police Officer is reported to be boasting of the manner in which he dealt a severe blow to the legal profession and how he won the cat-and-mouse game with regard to the arrest of a suspect. It seems, the Police have won the day. We have in this column reported several incidents of a similar nature.

If the Police continue to commit serious breaches of the law, and act against the lawyers who are officers in the temple of justice, no resolution condemning such action is going to bring desired results. When a resolution calling for the interdiction of the police officer who arrested Mr. Mahanama Tillekeratne was adopted the government of the day promoted him. The bar was silent on the promotion.

Similarly when the Supreme Court found that Udugampola violated the fundamental rights in the famous 'Pavidi Handa' case, the then government promoted him. The bar must be united in its resolve to bring to justice such errant officers by prosecuting them.

Today we have an independent Attorney-General. I believe that when offences of this nature are committed the Attorney-General should decide on the facts of the case and even prosecute the errant officer.

But the lawyers should not relent when the matter is taken up. When the heat settles the lawyers sometimes settle the matters with the police. The Police know this. The Bar easily forgets the past leaving the complainant lawyer at the mercy of the police, and he himself is then forced to settle matters. We are keeping our fingers crossed about the outcome of this episode.

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster