Rajiva Wijesinha

“ However, unless one believes that the Human Rights Commission is not important, the argument that he should have refrained from appointing this particular Commission, whilst appointing all the rest, is untenable. ”

“ The fact that no other remedies have been sought for this situation, to endeavour to create the Council, suggests that it is not Human Rights that are important, but rather the determination to wag fingers at the President alone, not the Speaker, not the parties not in the Government which will not agree on a nominee, not the opposition which has delayed amendments to the Constitution. ”

“ But people believe what they want to believe. The world at large prefers to believe the assertions of the Sri Lankan opposition rather than study the Constitution and judicial precedents. So the urgent pleas of the Government for assistance to improve its mechanisms has gone unheeded. ”

“ The current Nepalese government was not part of the conflict, indeed it was in virtual alliance with the Maoists to bring down the autocratic rule of the King – and the army the rebels were fighting was seen as the instrument of the King, not of the government that took over when he finally yielded. The difference between that situation, and the one in Sri Lanka which has a democratically elected government, has passed all these critics by. ”

“ The following assertion is typical of the falsehoods perpetrated by such institutions: “Sri Lankan government claims that its Human Rights Commission is a strong and independent institution ring hollow,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Unfortunately, Sri Lanka lacks credible domestic institutions to address human rights violations.”
Now the Sri Lankan government does not claim anything of the sort. The Minister for Disaster Management and Human Rights has repeatedly called for technical assistance to strengthen Human Rights Protection in Sri Lanka. ”

“ But the whole business would have seemed very funny, were Human Rights not a serious business, warranting attendance and attention at any institution one agreed to serve in, however small, that sought to address issues. ”

“ The idea that the current Chief Justice will be dictated to by others is arrant nonsense, as so many recent judgments show, and certainly no one has been able to fault conclusively his reasoning in any of the cases on which he has pronounced. ”

“ Last week saw an American blog that passes for high powered and intelligent claiming that the fact that the government had not allowed her to go to Kilinochchi proved it had something to hide. LTTE websites continue to claim that she was not allowed to go to Kilinochchi because the government feared what they would reveal about government violations. ”