A Bitter Mockery Of Theoretical Guarantees
By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -
On June 26th, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, a colleague asked me as to why so much criticism was being made of the Sri Lankan Government’s lack of commitment towards eradicating practices of torture in the country.
By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -
Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena
On June 26th, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, a colleague asked me as to why so much criticism was being made of the Sri Lankan Government’s lack of commitment towards eradicating practices of torture in the country.
After all, I was asked, is there not an Action Plan in place which focuses on the same objective specifically, are not constitutional and statutory provisions in place that prohibit torture, do not Sri Lankan courts entertain applications from torture victims and is there not a national Human Rights Commission monitoring state resort to such inhumane treatment?
A simplistic argument
The answers to these questions were quite simple. All the laws and actions plans in theory count for as naught if the Sri Lankan government, as a matter of state practice, encourages and facilitates torture in detention. The fact that such a state practice if not a state policy does actually currently exist has been documented through endless stories of victims whose complaints have not been disproved as false.
This is a practice that is evidenced against individuals of all ethnicities and stems from state policy that does not focus on a well functioning criminal justice system but instead uses terror and intimidation as a deliberate tactic of keeping dissent in check. It is this state policy that renders any defence of state actions by pointing to the theoretical guarantees in place as utterly simplistic, wrong and frankly, quite ludicrous.
Indeed, there are several levels at which legal impunity is afforded to perpetrators. Even when Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court was at its heyday in exercising its constitutional duty to protect rights, the very constitutional structure precluded vigorous interventions similar to the Indian Supreme Court. The manner in which even whatever judgments that it delivered were ignored by the political establishment is a separate question meanwhile.
