The Bar Association of Sri Lanka has today urged President Maithripala Sirisena to review the new situation and rescind the recent extension under and in terms of S: 21 of the Public Security Ordinance that transferred Police powers to the armed forces and or refrain from extending this Order when its validity period expires in three weeks time.
Upul Jayasuriya – BASL President
We publish below the statement in full;
The BASL notes that, His Excellency, President Maithripala Sirisena has, on 02nd February 2015, extended for one month the operation of the previous Order made under S:12 of the Public Security Ordinance, by His Excellency, the previous President Mahinda Rajapaksa which called out the Armed Forces on the purported basis that, circumstances endangering Public Security have arisen or will imminently arise in specified areas and that, the Police are inadequate to deal with such situation.
The BASL has previously voiced its firm view that, there was no factual or lawful justification for the previous Order and that, the Order should be rescinded.
The BASL urges His Excellency, President Maitripala Sirisena to review the situation and rescind the recent extension under and in terms of S: 21 of the Public Security Ordinance and or refrain from extending this Order when its validity period expires in three weeks time.
Related posts;
BASL Pleads For Time On Sirisena Giving Police Powers To Armed Forces
Déjà Vu: Srisena Issues An Order Calling Out Armed Forces To Exercise Police Powers
justice / February 9, 2015
BASL’s request is just.
The police should enforce law and order, and the army should counter threats to the nation from outside – such threats are non existent, but exist only in the imaginative minds of people like Dayan J, who invented it to enforce the militarisation of the north, especially, and the east too.
The notherners have suffered enough from the ravages and predations of the army directly, and indirectly under the guise of “grease yakkas” – an entire village of Navanturai were dragged out of homes in the middle of the night and brutally beaten up for having dared to capture two ‘grease yakkas’, & handing them over to the army, but later see them in uniform and being taken out of the camp, and for having dared to protest about it.
War widows and young women are daily at risk. Hindu shrines are occupied – many priests were assaulted for having dared to protest armymen walking into temples with boots on. The army ‘rehabilitates’ those who protest against loss of civil liberties.
In the south, the army hunts for ‘treasure’ in various places.
Rathupaswela and other incidents of army assaulting/shooting civilians are well known.
MR’s army regime should be negated, not continued.
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Mallaiyuran / February 9, 2015
Thanks CT.
You did it!
But,internally, nobody has so far pursued a legal action on EP for vesting police power to army which would be considered in other countries during active internal war not during perceived war. It seems everybody knows what a verdict may come from CJ Sripavan, if it goes up to Supreme Court.
Even Ukraine is not doing this for countrywide.
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Common Sense / February 10, 2015
It looks that Upul J wants to protest because he has to take the side of the gentry and at the same time mild to the extent that he implies that Prez Sirisena would have followed the routine. Is it?
Any one can intelligently guess that the waist coat that he started wearing during the election campaign is indeed a bullet proof vest and why on earth must he wear that during the independence parade where those near him were all ministers and state officials. So he knows that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown and indeed his enemy is really within and not outside.
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jayasingha / February 11, 2015
BASL must realize that State Security and sovereignty is with the executive president and should not pressurize him to weaken it. Please don’t do what you did in the case of CJs.
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