Bill to appoint Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented to House

By Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana

Parliament, September 3 (Daily Mirror)- The proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission will not have a mandate to penalize anyone, Minister of External Affairs Ali Sabry told Parliament today.

The Minister came out with this remark in response to an allegation made by MP Wimal Weerawansa who questioned whether the Truth, Unity and Reconciliation Commission is being brought to penalize 43 security personnel who have been already blacklisted by some countries.

“The Reconciliation Commission will not have a mandate to punish anyone. It will be set up only to determine the truth,” the Minister said.

“Tamil parties would not have opposed the Bill if it was designed to satisfy the international community. The issue today is that both the Tamil parties and some Sinhalese parties oppose the Bill. Even the Sinhala people will have the opportunity of stating their cases before the truth commission,” he said.

However MP Weerawansa said the government should not have presented the Bill at a time such as this where the country is about to hold a presidential election. Why don’t you wait till you get a fresh mandate for it at the presidential election,” the MP said.

As per the Bill which was presented to the House yesterday the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shall consist not less than seven members and not more than 21 members appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Constitutional Council. The chairman of the Commission will also be named by the President following the recommendation of the Constitutional Council.

The objectives of the commission include investigating, inquiring, making recommendations in respect of complaints relating to damages and harms caused to people, property, and loss of life or alleged violations of human rights anywhere in Sri Lanka which are related to conflict which took place in the North and the East from 1983 to 2009. The commission is bound to promote truth telling, national unity and rule of law. The commission is also bound to allow anyone to come in and present their positive experiences. The commission can make recommendations with regard to institutional, administrative and legislative policy and resource allocation measures. That should be introduced to prevent and ensure non-recurrence of alleged damage or harm caused to a person, policy, property and loss of life.

In accordance with the Bill the President is bound to appoint a 11 member committee to implement the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee within one month after the commission puts out its report. The implementation committee includes Secretary to Ministry of Finance, Secretary to Ministry of Justice, Secretary to Ministry of Defence, Secretary Ministry of Public Administration and Secretary of Ministry of Child Care and Women. The implementation committee will comprise six others who will be appointed on the recommendation of the constitutional council.