Despite the creation of a Commission of Inquiry of human rights violations in Sri Lanka, why do human rights violations continue to take place and why is justice not achieved? This report by Amnesty International seeks to highlight the issue of impunity in Sri Lanka and the role of the Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The report concludes that in the case of Sri Lanka the Commission of Inquiry did not perform well. The report offers recommendations to the Sri Lankan government as well as to the international civil society in order to bring justice to the victims of human rights violations in Sri Lanka.
The Commission of Inquiry was created to examine selected serious cases of human rights abuse that had not been effectively investigated by the police or prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Department. With impunity being the norm in Sri Lanka, it was common for human right violations to go unpunished. The inefficient justice system provided the necessary conditions for government officials to hinder prosecutions from taking place. Nevertheless, the Commission of Inquiry failed to redress the situation and did not perform well as a mechanism for justice in Sri Lanka, which merely became a truth-telling exercise.
In September 2006, President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced that he would invite an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) to act as observers of the activities of a local Commission, which would investigate the violations. However in November 2008, the IIGEP quit once it was clear the Sri Lankan government was unwilling to protect its citizens and uninterested in securing justice. In the end, IIGEP concluded that the Commission of Inquiry was not meeting international standards in five key areas, identifying:
- Serious conflicts of interest which persist that compromised the independence of the Commission.
- Lack of effective victim and witness protection.
- Lack of transparency and timeliness in the proceedings.
- Lack of full cooperation by state bodies.
- Lack of financial independence.
With the incompetence of the government to bring justice to all victims, the ineffectiveness of the Commission of Inquiry, the inability of the IIGEP to bring about reform, and the growing number of human right violation committed by both the government and the opposition forces, Amnesty International calls for a change of debate which refocuses on preventing the continuation of violations and ensuring real accountability for past abuses. In its conclusions, Amnesty International urges the international community to provide the leadership, resources and political will to call individuals to account that are currently missing in Sri Lanka. In its recommendations Amnesty International calls upon the government of Sri Lanka to:
- initiate, implement and support a national policy aimed at bringing perpetrators of human rights violations to justice;
- publicly acknowledge and forcefully denouncing wrongdoing by government forces;
- ensure effective investigations, due process and swift prosecution of all perpetrators, including those enjoying political influence and high social status; and
- establish and support an adequately resourced, carefully instituted and technically well-supported witness protection system.
