{"id":52124,"date":"2016-02-16T17:26:50","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T23:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52124"},"modified":"2016-02-16T10:20:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T17:20:44","slug":"foreign-judges-and-unhrc-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/02\/16\/foreign-judges-and-unhrc-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign Judges and UNHRC Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janaki Chandraratna<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

It appears that the President and the Government have not been very candid with the electorate on UNHRC resolution from day one of their campaign to unseat the previous regime. It is no brainer to understand that to co-sponsor a resolution one needs to agree with its contents. The previous regime also could have adopted the earlier resolution to be popular with the West and perhaps avoided a regime change. But they purposely avoided that path because it was inimical to our sovereignty. Twenty-three out of the forty-seven UNHCR member states also did not support the resolution and backed the then Sri Lankan government, because it was an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign State.<\/p>\n

The UN High Commissioner, Al Hussein, at his recent visit to the country, has made some uncharitable assessments that our key institutions are \u2018corroded and corrupted\u2019; our judiciary and law enforcement institutions are weak, politicized, unbalanced and virtually incapable of handling the UNHRC investigation without foreign participation. He also claimed that the government has agreed to implement the resolution in full. Despite the above it is amazing how the government is still trying to downplay the predicament to the electorate by asserting that President Sirisena and the government would not accept foreign judges in the UNHRC investigation and would not be pressurized by external agencies. (See Minister Musthapha\u2019s claims in The Island, 11 February 2016).<\/p>\n

It should be mentioned that although there is some truth in Al Hussein\u2019s comments of our judiciary judging by the recent contraventions of the constitution, politically targeted investigations and human rights violations\/killings due to unprecedented police powers, one could expect some kind of repudiation from self-respecting jurisdictions. The government\u2019s silence only endorses Hussein\u2019s comments and the case for the UNHRC investigation.<\/p>\n

In view of the fact that Al Hussein had categorically informed the government of its responsibilities and obligations to the co-sponsored resolution, the government has no other option but to inform the world and the electorate of its true position on the resolution. Interpretations and misinterpretations of terminology and spurious verbiage would not assist the government to overcome the situation. In order to explain the current situation, the government may need to inform categorically, among many other things, that the country is not in favor of the resolution or the participation of foreign judges in the investigation. In addition, the UN stricture on the disclosure of the names of the war crime complainants for 20 years and the non-endorsement of the co-sponsorship of the resolution through domestic parliamentary processes are also matters of concern. It is only after a truthful disclosure of the ground reality that the UNHCR can consider an alternative, such as a Truth and Reconciliation commission instead of a back dated investigation to address the alleged war crime allegations. But whether our political leaders will have the courage and sincerity to rise up to the occasion is however, a big question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janaki Chandraratna It appears that the President and the Government have not been very candid with the electorate on UNHRC resolution from day one of their campaign to unseat the previous regime. It is no brainer to understand that to co-sponsor a resolution one needs to agree with its contents. The previous regime also could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}