Presidency at fault - AHRC

Meanwhile, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) criticised Sri Lanka for becoming a country of lawlessness and urged for changes to the executive presidency system, which it claimed allows security needs to be put above the rule of law. 

“The essential problem that the country needs to resolve for its very survival as a nation is as to whether it can overcome the present state of lawlessness in the country,” said the AHRC.

“The executive presidential system, as it was introduced in 1978, was to displace all the legal mechanisms that existed within the country to ensure a basic system of the rule of law as the apparatus of governance in the country. Such a legal apparatus which did exist from the time of the country’s independence was replaced with a security apparatus which operates above the law,” the organisation said.

“Today, this security apparatus, which stands above all the legal institutions, has virtually displaced the rule of law mechanisms within the country”, reported the AHRC.

 “All those who have any kind of thinking capacity need to address their minds as to whether peace, reconciliation or power sharing makes any sense when the nation is in a state of lawlessness. Can the issue of peace be separated in Sri Lanka from the issue of law? If this issue is not addressed as carefully as possible by the opposition it cannot offer a viable alternative to the present state of affairs prevalent within the country now under the executive presidential system.”

“In the previous presidential elections the government promised the abolition of the executive presidency. However, the government approaches the next elections with a view to consolidate the power of the executive president more than for any other reason.”

The Citizen’s Movement for Good Governance also blames the executive presidency system and those in power for the systematic degrading of the independence and professionalism of the police force.