Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala says all arrangements have been made to complete 9,000 delayed Government Analyst’s reports and forward them to the courts within the month.
The minister made the statement on Saturday (15) while taking part in an inspection tour of the Pallansena prison. NewsFirst, which described the documents as forensic reports, said he also met inmates and their relatives and asked about the problems they were facing.
Delays in Government Analyst’s reports are a long-standing bottleneck in Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system. The reports carry the scientific findings courts rely on in narcotics, firearms and homicide cases, and a backlog holds up prosecutions while unconvicted suspects remain in remand custody.
Wijepala said he intends to visit other prisons across the island to carry out similar inspections and discuss the issues raised at each facility.
Discussions at Pallansena also covered how to protect the lives of inmates across all 33 prisons in the country, the minister said, and how to guarantee the safety of the prison officers serving in them.
He said a committee capable of acting in an emergency is being set up, drawing in the District Secretary, the Divisional Secretary, Fire Brigade officers, the tri-forces, the Special Task Force, a Deputy Inspector General of Police and the prison superintendent. That committee is being formed first at Pallansena.
The visit follows a turbulent stretch for the prison system. Inmates at Pallansena climbed onto a roof in protest on August 7, one of several disturbances that prompted the government to announce a joint mechanism for inmate safety.
