Don’t enact a more draconian law after repealing the PTA: Zuhair

The Government must repeal the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act altogether without attempting to enact more draconian laws under new names and prevent the abuse by the executive of the provisions of the Constitution, particularly its fundamental rights provisions, former MP M. M. Zuhair said yesterday.

Many new laws such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act etc. with powerful investigative mechanisms already exist.
Extensive violations of the constitutional and other legal protections have become a common occurrence but most citizens cannot afford the costly process of accessing the fundamental rights protections in the Supreme Court. 

The Human Rights Commissions, all along, had failed to deliver alternative justice except in high profile publicity-oriented cases. The appointment of a Commission will expose how people suffer in silence more out of fear of complaining than because of the costs of litigation.

In 2018 the then government attempted to enact a new Counter Terrorism law but it was abandoned following strong criticism of its draconian provisions such as ‘widening the scope’ of terrorist offences into impacting on freedom of expression, social media and opening channels for foreign manipulations of investigations statutorily vested in the Sri Lankan Police.
What is required is the elimination, even by amending the PTA, of the controversial provisions in the terror law, such as the admissibility of confessions ‘invariably threatened’ to be given by investigators while suspects are in continuous police custody and admissibility of such alleged confessions in violation of the Evidence Ordinance; detention orders and remand orders being decided by the executive without judicial determinations and bail provisions which avoid judicial interventions, unreasonable refusal by the executive to ‘consent to bail’ etc.
In the light of the recent determination of the seven-member Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya PC, in the failures to avert the Easter Sunday attacks case, expressing ‘shock and dismay at the deplorable conduct of affairs pertaining to Security, Law and Order and Intelligence’, what is presently required is to tighten the laws making investigators accountable and not laws that facilitate their continued infringement of citizens’ rights.