SRI LANKA’S JUDICIARY: POLITICISED COURTS, COMPROMISED RIGHTS Asia Report N°172 – 30 June 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1 II. A LEGACY OF DIMINISHING INDEPENDENCE .....................................................2 A. THE COLONIAL AND POST-INDEPENDENCE JUDICIARY.................................................................2 B. THE 1972 CONSTITUTION’S REJECTION OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE ..........................................3 C. THE 1978 CONSTITUTION’S AMBIVALENT EMBRACE OF JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE ......................3 D. THE PRESENT STRUCTURE OF SRI LANKAN COURTS ....................................................................4 III. JURISDICTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE COURTS ...........................................5 A. THE CONSTITUTION’S BARRIERS TO JUDICIAL ACTION ................................................................5 B. EMERGENCY LAWS ......................................................................................................................6 1. Emergency regulations.................................................................................................................6 2. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA)......................................................................................8 IV. POLITICAL INFLUENCES ON THE JUDICIARY.....................................................8 A. APPOINTMENTS TO THE SUPREME COURT ....................................................................................8 1. The president’s appointment power.............................................................................................8 2. The constitutional council............................................................................................................9 3. The chief justice.........................................................................................................................10 B. REMOVAL OF SUPREME COURT JUSTICES...................................................................................12 C. APPOINTMENTS AND REMOVALS IN THE LOWER COURTS ..........................................................13 1. The JSC and the Seventeenth Amendment ................................................................................13 2. Appointments and removals by the JSC ....................................................................................14 D. INTIMIDATION OF LAWYERS AND JUDGES ..................................................................................15 V. FAILURE TO PROTECT FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS..............................................16 A. THE ABSENCE OF REMEDIES FOR ILLEGAL DETENTION IN LOWER COURTS................................16 1. Detention and magistrate courts.................................................................................................16 2. Habeas corpus ............................................................................................................................20 3. The failure to discourage illegal detention by damages actions and criminal prosecution........20 4. Remedies in the Supreme Court.................................................................................................21 B. THE SUPREME COURT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW .....................................................................22 VI. THE SUPREME COURT, EXECUTIVE POWER AND TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY .....................................................................................................................24 A. THE SUPREME COURT AND THE UNITARY STATE.......................................................................24 1. The PTOMS case .......................................................................................................................25 2. The demerger case .....................................................................................................................25 B. THE SUPREME COURT AND EXECUTIVE POWER .........................................................................26 1. The checkpoints and eviction cases ...........................................................................................26 2. The Waters Edge and Lanka Marine Services cases..................................................................26 VII. CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................28 APPENDICES A. MAP OF SRI LANKA .........................................................................................................................30 B. SRI LANKA’S COURT SYSTEM..........................................................................................................31 C. GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................................32 D. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................................34 E. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON ASIA SINCE 2006 ........................................................35 F. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES................................................................................................38 Asia Report N°172 30 June 2009 SRI LANKA’S JUDICIARY: POLITICISED COURTS, COMPROMISED RIGHTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Sri Lanka’s judiciary is failing to protect constitutional political grounds against judges who have broken with and human rights. Rather than assuaging conflict, the a ruling coalition. No effective mechanism exists to courts have corroded the rule of law and worsened sanction corrupt or abusive judges. ethnic tensions. Rather than constraining militarisation and protecting minority rights, a politicised bench under At the same time, the recently retired chief justice, the just-retired chief justice has entrenched favoured Sarath N. Silva, chose to exercise his powers in ways allies, punished foes and blocked compromises with that further sapped the independence of the lower the Tamil minority. Its intermittent interventions on courts and the Supreme Court. Through the Judicial important political questions have limited settlement Service Commission (JSC), he controlled appoint- options for the ethnic conflict. Extensive reform of the ments, transfers and removals of lower court judges. judicial system – beginning with a change in approach He used those administrative powers to punish judges from the newly appointed chief justice – and an over- out of step with his wishes and to reward those who haul of counterproductive emergency laws are essen- toed the line. Police and other politically influential tial if the military defeat of the LTTE is to lead to a constituencies used their close ties to the chief justice lasting peace that has the support of all ethnic com- to influence judicial decisions. Fear of sanction by the munities. JSC has undermined judges’ willingness to move aggressively against the police or the military, particu- At independence in 1948, Sri Lanka had a comparatively larly in cases involving the rights of Tamil detainees. professional and independent judiciary. New constitu- Entrenching this problem are informal local networks tions in 1972 and 1978, however, cut back on the of contacts and collaboration between police, judges judiciary’s protection from parliamentary and presi- and the bar. In part as a result of these ties, there are no dential intrusions. The 1978 constitution vested unfet- effective checks on endemic torture in police custody. tered control of judicial appointments in presidential hands. Unlike other South Asian countries, no strong Formal constitutional and statutory rules further under- tradition or norm of consultation between the presi- mine judicial independence, deepening Sri Lanka’s dent and the chief justice developed. Nor did predict- political and ethnic crises and compounding harms to able rules immune from manipulation, such as promo- human and constitutional rights. Most importantly, tion by seniority, emerge. Sri Lanka has two sets of emergency laws – regula- tions issued under the Public Security Ordinance, No. The Seventeenth Amendment, enacted in October 2001, 25 of 1947, and the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act attempted to depoliticise a range of public institutions, (PTA) – which impose severe limits on courts’ juris- including the judiciary, by establishing a constitutional diction and authority to prevent abusive detention and council. The council limited the power of the presi- torture. Emergency regulations and the PTA are used dent to make direct appointments to the courts and in- disproportionately in Tamil areas and against Tamil dependent commissions. Since 2005, however, Presi- suspects. Without the repeal or radical reform of these dents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa laws, continued political alienation of Tamils is virtu- have wilfully ignored this constitutional limit by refus- ally assured. ing to convene the constitutional council. An increas- ing proportion of President Rajapaksa’s appointees to Neither the local magistrate courts nor the provincial the higher court have been from the attorney general’s high courts provide remedies for illegal or abusive de- office. The result is benches stacked to favour the gov- tention under either the emergency laws or the crimi- ernment. The 1978 constitution’s system