Focus on Rights

The truth behind the November 2005 recommendations of the CAT committee
News reports last week asserted that the Concluding Recommendations of the Committee Against Torture issued last month after consideration of Sri Lanka's second Periodic Report under the Convention Against Torture were not so inimical to Sri Lanka. Undoubtedly, these reports were as optimistically starry eyed as the government officials who thought fit to assert the same.

In truth, the conclusions of the CAT Committee were considerably severe in respect of State responsibility concerning the lack of prompt investigations into complaints of human rights abuses, torture and disappearances. Inadequate measures taken to displace the culture of impunity and improve performance of domestic rights monitoring bodies are also questioned. The severity of the Recommendations are, in fact, easily verifiable on a desultory reading of their content as opposed to a regrettably slip shod reliance on government assertions.

The CAT Committee recommendations reflect similar concerns made by a fellow United Nations monitoring mechanism, the UN Human Rights Committee (UN-HRC) in response to consideration of the 4th/5th Periodic Reports by Sri Lanka under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2003. Both CAT and the UN-HRC comprise expert member committee who deliberate on reports of States parties submitted in terms of reporting procedures stipulated in treaties ratified by the States. Sri Lanka has been subject to such reporting procedures since 1980.

Where the CAT Committee is concerned, certain matters are of particular note. Not surprisingly, the Committee calls for a strengthening of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka as well as the National Police Commission (NPC). Particularly, it has called for full cooperation by the police in this regard. Active hostility towards the NPC by the incumbent in the office of the Inspector General of Police, was a particular feature of the pre periodic report briefings provided to the Committee by rights activists.

The CAT Committee has stressed also that independent human rights monitors be allowed full access to all places of detention, including police barracks, without prior notice. Currently, a police circular allows HRC staff only to examine cells in police stations and not areas where torture is in fact routinely practiced such as the kitchens and the toilets. A prompt re-appointment of the HRC Commissioners when the three-year term of office of the present body expires in March 2006 as well as the re-appointment of the NPC Commissioners, (the term of office of the first Commissioners have now expired), is urged.

The NPC is directed meanwhile to speedily establish the constitutionally mandated public complaints procedure. This was a concern of the UN-HRC as well in 2003. Recommendation no; 12 is perhaps of the most vital import. In this instance, deep concern is expressed about continued well-documented allegations of widespread torture and ill-treatment as well as disappearances mainly by the State's police forces which remain not investigated promptly and impartially by the competent authorities.

Essentially, the Government is put on inquiry to ensure prompt, impartial and exhaustive investigations into all allegations of violations of torture and ill-treatment and disappearances committed by law enforcement officials.
The Committee is of the unequivocal view that such violations should not be undertaken by or under the authority of the police, but by an independent body. This is in line with a long standing demand by activists that an independent Prosecutor's Office should be established with a mandate to conduct independent investigations, given the obvious futility of expecting police officers to investigate alleged abuses of their own colleagues.

In addition, it is pointed out that where prima facie cases of torture are concerned, the accused should be subject to suspension or reassignment during the process of investigation, especially if there is a risk that he or she might impede the investigation. This recommendation is of particular response in order to offset recent public statements by government ministers and the IGP opposing the interdiction of police officers indicted under the Torture Act, No 22 of 1994 by the NPC.

Thereafter, the Committee recommends that where appropriate, the perpetrators should be convicted and appropriate sentences imposed, thus eliminating any ideas of impunity that might be entertained by perpetrators of torture. The State is also directed to set up a witness protection programme and inquire into all reported cases of witness intimidation.
Indeed, one significant factor testifying to the seriousness with which the CAT Committee viewed the situation, was its resort to Rules of Procedure calling upon the Government to reply as to how it intended to more fully protect the life and liberty rights of its citizens, not within the normal four year reporting period but within an accelerated one year.

The UN-HRC also imposed similar accelerated reporting procedures on Sri Lanka in 2003. Where the UN-HRC is concerned however, the Government appears to have not yet complied with this direction to report back within one year. It remains to be seen whether it will comply with the direction of the CAT Committee.

Continued bypassing of these directions will undoubtedly carry with it, its own consequences in terms of the demonstrated commitment of the Sri Lankan State to international obligations that it has voluntarily undertaken. And optimistically slanted news reports will not detract from this truth either.

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