Withdraw bill on enforced disappearances: JO

18 September 2017 10:42 pm Views - 7405

Joint Opposition Leader MP Dinesh Gunawardena today said the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPAPED) Bill should be withdrawn from Parliament order paper following the assurance given by the President.

Addressing a news conference, he said a group of JO MPs met President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday and the President assured that the Bill would not be taken up on Thursday.

“The Bill had still not been withdrawn from Parliament order paper. We will ask the Speaker to remove it. If the Bill was passed, we may have to handover all soldiers including General (retired) Jagath Jayasuriya, former president and defence minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa to other countries,” he said.

Meanwhile, MP Dullas Alahapperuma said the Prime Minister’s assurance that the ICPAPED Bill would not have retrospective effect was not acceptable.

“We informed the President of this danger. Our MPs briefed the President that government’s allies such as the US, UK, Norway, Australia or Canada had not ratified this convention. Some of them have signed it but had not ratified. We told him how unethical it is to make laws retrospective through this convention,” he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)

 

Video by Janaka