{"id":48868,"date":"2016-10-09T16:04:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T20:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48868"},"modified":"2016-10-09T16:04:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T20:04:14","slug":"security-establishment-influences-govt-into-drafting-new-laws-worse-than-the-draconian-prevention-of-terrorism-actpta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48868","title":{"rendered":"Security Establishment Influences Govt into Drafting New Laws Worse than the Draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act(PTA)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nBy P.K.Balachandran<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the premier Tamil political group in Sri Lanka, fears that the proposed new law to replace the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) may well be old wine in a new bottle with most of the controversial provisions being retained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt may even be worse than the PTA going by the influence of the Security Establishment on government\u2019s thinking on these matters,\u201d TNA\u2019s spokesman and MP, M.A.Sumanthiran, told Express on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Law Commission in its report to the government on replacing the PTA had apparently given suggestions which would have put the new law in line with international best practices. But I hear that the government consulted the Security Establishment and rejected the commission\u2019s suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I raised this issue in parliament in October 4, neither the Justice Minister nor any other minister reacted, though the Justice Minister reacted to my remarks on the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code,\u201d   Sumanthiran said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis despite my warning the government that Sri Lanka will not get the European Union\u2019s trade concessions under the General System of Preferences if it violates the UN Human Rights Commission\u2019s resolution of October 1, 2015 which had clearly said that PTA has to be replaced with a law in tune with international best practices,\u201d the MPsaid.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka had jointly sponsored the UNHRC resolution along with the US.<\/p>\n<p>The Tamil MP, who is also a Supreme Court lawyer, fears that the new law will retain objectionable features of the PTA like preventive detention for indefinite periods and legal acceptance of \u201cconfessions\u201d made to police officers in the first instance.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe rejected Sumanthiran\u2019s demand to allow a detainee to get legal assistance when his first statement is recorded. Rajapakshe cited objections from the Security Establishment to any kind of legal assistance at that stage and said that their views could not be overlooked.<\/p>\n<p>Unconvinced, Sumanthiran approached Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe,  who got the introduction of the Cr.PC amendment bill postponed to allow consideration of the TNA\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:New Indian Express<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton48868\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D48868&amp;text=Security%20Establishment%20Influences%20Govt%20into%20Drafting%20New%20Laws%20Worse%20than%20the%20Draconian%20Prevention%20of%20Terrorism...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By P.K.Balachandran The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the premier Tamil political group in Sri Lanka, fears that the proposed new law to replace the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) may well be old wine in a new bottle with most of the controversial provisions being retained. \u201cIt may even be worse than the PTA &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48868\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Security Establishment Influences Govt into Drafting New Laws Worse than the Draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act(PTA)&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48869,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48868\/revisions\/48869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}